Building Better Connections Through Dementia Education at Ecumen Detroit Lakes
Building Better Connections Through Dementia Education at Ecumen Detroit Lakes
By Darcy DeMars | October 28, 2026
DETROIT LAKES, MN (October 28, 2026) — Dementia changes how a person experiences the world, but it doesn’t change their need for connection, understanding, and compassion. Learning how to meet people where they are can make a meaningful difference — both for those living with dementia and for the people who care for them.
On October 20 and 21, Ecumen Detroit Lakes brought caregivers, families, and community members together for two days of education focused on understanding dementia and building stronger connections with those living with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Both sessions were led by expert trainers Melanie Bunn and Missy Harden from Teepa Snow’s Positive Approach to Care. This training was funded by the New Americans Long-Term Care Workforce grant from the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
The two-day event featured hands-on training for professional caregivers from Ecumen, followed by an interactive presentation for the public, with a special focus on family members navigating the dementia journey with a loved one.
Learning to See Dementia Differently
The first day focused on professional caregivers from Ecumen Detroit Lakes and Ecumen’s clinical leadership team, offering a full day of hands-on training and workshop activities designed to strengthen dementia care skills. The training emphasized the importance of understanding how dementia affects a person’s abilities and learning practical ways to adapt care to their changing needs.
For caregivers, this means looking beyond a person’s words or actions to consider what they may be experiencing. When familiar abilities change, everyday tasks and interactions can become more challenging. Learning to recognize those changes can help caregivers respond with greater patience, flexibility, and understanding.
Bobbi Koons, Ecumen’s Nurse Educator said, “The class was wonderful. Relating residents’ stages of dementia to ‘Gem States’ made them easier to understand. We practiced recognizing each person’s ‘Gem’ and meeting them where they are, helping them maintain a sense of control and do what they can for themselves—even as their care needs increase. Each ‘Gem’ is a gift that reflects who they are and where they are in their dementia journey.”
And Ecumen Detroit Lakes Registered Nurse Heather Spier agreed, “The workshop was engaging the entire day and I learned valuable, easy to apply skills to help our residents living with dementia.”
The following day, Ecumen Detroit Lakes opened the conversation to the broader community with a two-hour interactive presentation titled Communication and Dementia. The session explored how changes in the brain can affect communication and offered practical strategies for connecting with a person living with dementia.
One attendee shared, “This training was so eye-opening for me. I understand more now about how the brain takes in and stores information, and how and why sometimes it doesn’t. The tips for how to communicate with my mom, especially the empathetic listening, are things I look forward to trying right away.”
Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference
One of the important messages of dementia education is that effective communication often requires caregivers to change their approach.
Simple strategies can help make interactions more comfortable and successful. Using fewer words, offering visual cues, allowing extra time for a response, and presenting one step at a time can help reduce frustration. Building a connection before attempting a task can also make a difference.
Trainer Melanie pointed out, “Dementia doesn’t ruin relationships; the way we act does.” And learning how to act was taught and practiced during all sessions.
When a conversation or interaction becomes difficult, stepping back and trying a different approach may be more helpful than repeating the same words or instructions.
Just as importantly, caregivers can learn to look beyond what a person says or does to consider the feelings or needs they may be communicating. Approaching these moments with empathy and curiosity can help preserve a sense of dignity and strengthen trust.
For families, these insights can offer a new perspective on everyday interactions with someone they love. For professional caregivers, they reinforce the importance of continually adapting care to the person, rather than expecting the person to adapt to us.
Supporting Caregivers, Families, and the Community
A dementia diagnosis can bring uncertainty and questions for everyone involved. Education can help caregivers and families better understand what is happening, recognize changing abilities, and discover new ways to support meaningful connection.
By bringing professional caregivers and community members together for these learning opportunities, Ecumen Detroit Lakes reinforced its commitment to supporting people living with dementia and the individuals who walk alongside them.
At Ecumen, caring for older adults means recognizing the person behind the diagnosis — their history, preferences, abilities, and need to feel understood. Continued learning helps caregivers put that person-centered approach into practice, even as dementia changes the way a person communicates and experiences the world.
Because sometimes, better care begins with a simple but powerful shift: instead of asking how we can get someone to understand us, asking how we can better understand them.
To learn more about Ecumen Detroit Lakes and the support available to older adults living with Alzheimer’s or dementia and their families, visit ecumen.org/detroit-lakes.
To schedule a tour, contact Charlie Newland at CharlesNewland@ecumen.org or 218-844-8340.
About Ecumen
Ecumen is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing innovative housing, health care and community-based services that support older adults and strengthen communities. Mission-driven since its founding in 1862, Ecumen’s legacy of service reflects a commitment to honoring those it serves. Ecumen is based in Shoreview, Minn., and provides housing options such as independent living, assisted living, memory care, short-term rehabilitation and long-term care. Its diverse in-home and community-based services include home care, hospice, physical and occupational therapy, and adult day services. For more information, visit www.ecumen.org.
Trick or Treating at Ecumen Detroit Lakes | Oct. 25th, 2:00–4:00 p.m.
When: Sunday, October 25th, 2026 from 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Where: Ecumen Detroit Lakes (Enter at Main/TCU Entrance)
Address: 1415 Madison Ave, Detroit Lakes, MN 56501
Trick or Treaters Welcome!
Bring your little ones trick-or-treating at Ecumen Detroit Lakes where the weather is always perfect
and the treats are never tricky. Our team members and residents look forward to seeing you!
Bring a non-perishable food item for our resident-led drive supporting our local food pantry.
Questions? Contact Us: angelashovein@ecumen.org | 218-844-7128
** View all upcoming events at Ecumen Detroit Lakes. **
Teepa Snow's Positive Approach to Dementia Care | Oct. 21st at 1pm
When: October 21st, 2026 from 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Where: Ecumen Detroit Lakes (in the Activity Room)
Address: 1415 Madison Ave, Detroit Lakes, MN 56501
Teepa Snow’s Positive Approach to Dementia Care (afternoon session)*
Ecumen Detroit Lakes is proud to host educators from team Teepa Snow, world renowned expert in dementia-care education! Teepa’s team will share a series of simple techniques so you can:
- Protect and Grow Your Relationship
- Experience Less Resistance
- Experience Less Stress
If someone you love is living with Alzheimer’s or dementia, you won’t want to miss this insightful, learning opportunity.
Presented by: The Team of Teepa Snow
RSVP as space is limited: complete the RSVP form below | Questions? Call 218-847-4486
** View all upcoming events at Ecumen Detroit Lakes. **
Teepa Snow's Positive Approach to Dementia Care | Oct. 21st at 9am
When: October 21st, 2026 from 9:00am – 11:00am
Where: Ecumen Detroit Lakes (in the Activity Room)
Address: 1415 Madison Ave, Detroit Lakes, MN 56501
Teepa Snow’s Positive Approach to Dementia Care (morning session)*
Ecumen Detroit Lakes is proud to host educators from team Teepa Snow, world renowned expert in dementia-care education! Teepa’s team will share a series of simple techniques so you can:
- Protect and Grow Your Relationship
- Experience Less Resistance
- Experience Less Stress
If someone you love is living with Alzheimer’s or dementia, you won’t want to miss this insightful, learning opportunity.
Presented by: The Team of Teepa Snow
RSVP as space is limited: complete the RSVP form below | Questions? Call 218-847-4486
** View all upcoming events at Ecumen Detroit Lakes. **
ECUMEN DETROIT LAKES THERAPY PARTNERS WITH AVEANNA HOME HEALTH
Ecumen Detroit Lakes Therapy Partners with Aveanna Home Health to Serve More of the Community.
By Charles Newland | February 1, 2022
DETROIT LAKES, MN, February 1, 2022 — Ecumen Detroit Lakes partnering with Aveanna Healthcare to continue to fulfill Ecumen’s mission of providing compassionate health care and innovative services to the greater Detroit Lakes community starting February 1.
Ecumen Detroit Lakes currently offers intensive therapy services on its campus to those who need physical, occupational, and speech-language therapy. With this new collaboration, Ecumen Detroit Lakes will be able to bring these services into the homes of those needing them.
“We’re so pleased that we’re able to serve more people in the DL community with this partnership,” said Executive Director of Ecumen Detroit Lakes, Danielle Olson. “Our therapy team here at Ecumen has produced excellent outcomes for those in our skilled nursing facility and outpatients coming to our rehab center. By partnering with Aveanna Home Health, Detroit Lakes Therapy can now offer that same quality and excellent outcomes for our patients in their own home environments.”
About Aveanna Home Health
Aveanna Healthcare is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and has locations in 30 states providing a broad range of pediatric and adult healthcare services including nursing, rehabilitation services, occupational nursing in schools, therapy services, day treatment centers for medically fragile and chronically ill children and adults, home health and hospice services, as well as delivery of enteral nutrition and other products to patients. The Company also provides case management services in order to assist families and patients by coordinating the provision of services between insurers or other payers, physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare providers. In addition, the Company provides respite healthcare services, which are temporary care provider services provided in relief of the patient’s normal caregiver. The Company’s services are designed to provide a high-quality, lower-cost alternative to prolonged hospitalization. For more information, please visit www.aveanna.com.
About Ecumen
Ecumen is a nonprofit provider, developer and operator of award-winning living spaces and innovative technology and services for older adults. Mission-driven since its founding in 1862, Ecumen’s legacy of service is a reflection of a commitment to honoring those it serves. Ecumen is based in Shoreview, Minn., and operates properties and services in multiple states, and provides new development, management and consulting services. Housing options include cooperative living, independent living, assisted living, memory care, short-term rehabilitation and long-term care communities. Its diverse in-home and community-based services include home care, hospice, physical and occupational therapy, adult day services, technology products and an online durable goods medical store. Ecumen is a recipient of the 2020 NRC Health Customer Approved Award, a reflection of resident and family member ratings.
For more information, visit ecumen.org.
ECUMEN DETROIT LAKES’ EMMANUEL NURSING HOME RECEIVES TOP RATING FROM U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT
Emmanuel Nursing Home at Ecumen Detroit Lakes Receives Top Rating from U.S. News & World Report.
By Charles Newland | December 21, 2021
DETROIT LAKES, MN, December 21, 2021 — Ecumen Detroit Lakes in Detroit Lakes, Minn., has again received a “Best Nursing Home” rating for its Emmanuel Nursing Home by U.S. News & World Report magazine. The magazine evaluated more than 15,000 facilities throughout the country, rating most of them in the areas of short-term rehabilitation and long-term care. Ecumen Detroit Lakes received a “high performance” rating — the highest designation possible — in both areas, an honor received by less than 5 percent of those evaluated.
“We are honored to be once again named by the U.S. News & World Report as one of the best nursing homes in Minnesota. This achievement is a direct reflection of our amazing team members who provide excellent care to our residents. Our team members are the true recipients of this honor,” said Danielle Olson, Executive Director of Ecumen Detroit Lakes. “We also want to thank our Detroit Lakes community for entrusting their loved ones to us for more than half a century. Now more than ever, we have relied upon our community to navigate through these uncharted waters. Thank you for your support through the years,” said Danielle Olson.
U.S. News compiles its rating information in a national Nursing Home Finder that offers comprehensive information about care, safety, health inspections, staffing and more for almost all nursing homes in the country. This tool provides customized searches for nursing homes by location, Medicare and Medicaid coverage, Alzheimer’s care and size. The Nursing Home Finder reflects U.S. News’s analysis of data collected and published by the federal government using a methodology defined by U.S. News.
Since their inception in 2009, the U.S. News Best Nursing Home ratings have relied on data from Nursing Home Compare, a program run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency that sets and enforces standards for nursing homes.
Ecumen Detroit Lakes’ Emmanuel Nursing Home, located at 1415 Madison Ave, has been serving the Detroit Lakes area for more than 57 years. In addition to providing skilled nursing care, Ecumen Detroit Lakes offers short-term rehabilitation, memory care, and assisted living apartments, as well as home care, adult day services, and catering services. More than 200 people each day benefit directly from Ecumen Detroit Lakes services.
For more information call 218-847-4486 or visit ecumendetroitlakes.org.
About Ecumen
Ecumen is a nonprofit provider, developer and operator of award-winning living spaces and innovative technology and services for older adults. Mission-driven since its founding in 1862, Ecumen’s legacy of service is a reflection of a commitment to honoring those it serves. Ecumen is based in Shoreview, Minn., and operates properties and services in multiple states, and provides new development, management and consulting services. Ecumen is a recipient of the 2020 NRC Health Customer Approved Award.
For more information, visit ecumen.org.
A 107-year-old Minnesota woman beats Covid-19
A 107-year-old Minnesota woman beats Covid-19
(CNN) — Tillie Dybing is a survivor.
At the age of 107, the Minnesota woman recently beat Covid-19 after being diagnosed this fall, according to officials at the Ecumen Detroit Lakes community home, where she has lived since 2015.
This isn’t the first pandemic Dybing has lived through. Born in 1913, she was almost 5 years old when the 1918 flu pandemic hit her family farm in North Dakota, she told CNN affiliate KARE.
“My folks got sick and they were in bed, and I’d run into the bed and my Dad said, ‘Can’t you find another place to run,'” she said.
Throughout her life, Dybing endured other losses, including the deaths of several siblings in infancy and her husband in her 80s. She is also a cancer survivor, having beaten uterine cancer at the age of 95, KARE reported.
Now, she has survived two viral pandemics. The only Covid-19 symptoms Dybing says she had was fatigue.
“Nothing in her lungs. They said she doesn’t have a fever. She just slept all the time,” Tillie’s daughter Susan Berke told KARE.
Dybing recently returned to her apartment at the facility after spending a few weeks away from the general population, Ecumen officials tell CNN. They added that they are happy she has recovered and thanked her family for trusting them with her care.
“We continue to be so grateful to see that smile and hear her infectious laugh each day,” Ecumen Detroit Lakes posted on their Facebook page. “She is such a blessing to our community!”
Ecumen Announces New Housing Projects
Ecumen Announces New Housing Projects
Growing to Serve More
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | By Sue Sorensen Lee | Dec. 10th, 2020
SHOREVIEW, Minn. – (Dec.10, 2020) – Minnesota-based Ecumen, one of the country’s largest nonprofit providers of housing and services for older adults, announced that in 2020, it has opened, launched or moved forward with 12 new owned or managed housing projects in the Midwest, with more on the horizon.
“Our goal is to continue to grow to serve more people through our housing, compassionate healthcare services, and related business lines,” says Ecumen president and CEO Shelley Kendrick. Ecumen’s differentiated model reflects its focus on safety and wellness, and the importance of individually defined holistic health. The organization is including elements of well building design in its new properties.
Ecumen’s projects represent an expansion of more than 975 apartments for older adults. “I’m especially pleased that three of these new offerings are affordable housing,” says Kendrick, who has highlighted affordability as an ongoing housing priority for the organization.
New Ecumen-Owned Properties
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- Ecumen Pathstone Latitude – Mankato, Minn. – February 2021
- Expansion of Ecumen’s Pathstone campus
- 56 new independent living apartments in this new building located on the bluffs of the
Minnesota River – an extension of the large, full continuum of care campus - The new building will also house 24 new memory care apartments (Ecumen Pathstone
Landing)
- Snelling Yards Senior Housing – Minneapolis, Minn. – summer 2022
- New development: 100 affordable independent living senior housing apartments
- 11 apartments are dedicated to homeless veterans
- Edina Affordable Housing – suburb of Minneapolis, Minn. – summer 2023
- Owner, Ecumen and Lupe Development Partners
- New development: 118 affordable housing apartments
- Ecumen Pathstone Latitude – Mankato, Minn. – February 2021
Ecumen Managed Properties
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- Mt. Royal Pines III – Duluth, Minn. – April 2020
- Existing community: 54 assisted living apartments
- Rose Senior Living Beachwood – Beachwood, Ohio – June 2020
- New development: 174 unit blended building – independent living, assisted living, memory
care
- New development: 174 unit blended building – independent living, assisted living, memory
- St. Croix Forest Heights – St. Croix Falls, Wis. – Nov. 2020
- Existing community: 30 affordable independent living apartments
- River Town Heights – St.Croix Falls, Wis. – Nov. 2020
- Existing community: 25 affordable independent living apartments
- CedarStone – Cedar Falls, Iowa – early 2022
- New development: 120 carefree living, assisted living and memory care apartments
- Quartet – Bettendorf, Iowa – early 2022
- New development: 120 carefree living, assisted living and memory care apartments
- Mt. Royal Pines III – Duluth, Minn. – April 2020
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New Cooperative Living Properties
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- Zvago Lake Superior – Duluth, Minn. – Oct. 2020
- Overlooking Lake Superior, near Ecumen Lakeshore campus
- 51 units
- Zvago Stillwater – Stillwater, Minn. – early 2022
- Located in downtown Stillwater
- 48 units
- Zvago Long Lake – Long Lake, Minn. – fall 2022
- Overlooking Long Lake
- 57 units
- Zvago Lake Superior – Duluth, Minn. – Oct. 2020
About Ecumen
Founded in 1862 as a Lutheran social service agency, nonprofit Ecumen provides housing choices, compassionate healthcare, and innovative services to older adults. One of the largest providers in the country, Ecumen is recognized for its innovative programming and individualized, person-centered care. The company is a recipient of the 2020 NRC Health Customer Approved Award, reflecting the ratings provided by the residents and family members it serves. Based in Shoreview, Minn., Ecumen operates nearly 100 properties and services in more than 40 communities in multiple states. Housing options include independent living, assisted living, memory care, short-term rehabilitation long-term care communities, and long-term care communities, in addition to offering cooperative living, home and community-based services, hospice, and a durable medical equipment store. The company also provides consulting services in management, marketing, and development. For more information, visit us on Facebook or at ecumen.org.
Ecumen Nurse Honored by Becker County United Way as Every Day Hero
Ecumen Detroit Lakes Nurse Bobbi Jo Koons, RN, got a big surprise recently when she was awarded the Every Day Hero Award of 2018 by the United Way of Becker County.
Technology Transports Grandmother To Her Grandson’s Wrestling Tournament
Technology allows a grandmother at Ecumen Detroit Lakes to watch her grandson's wrestling matches.