Lubomira Cook

Lubomira Cook became a volunteer for the Senior Companion Program in 2004. She is currently assisting an 89 year old client who lives alone, has difficulty with numerous medical problems and was first referred to Senior Companions after a fall resulting in a three week hospitalization. She needed help with meal preparation, changing her bed linens, laundry, shopping, medication reminders and she also lacked the companionship of someone close to her own age.

Once, Ms. Cook noticed that her client was having difficulty breathing and alerted her client's family who took her in for further evaluation with her physician resulting in better medical care for her. On another occasion she called the family to alert them to the fact that the client "just didn't seem well". The physician indicated that the client was experiencing problems with fluctuating blood pressure and changed her medications. Most recently the client began to experience problems with mood swings and forgetfulness. Again the physician was alerted and he diagnosed Alzheimer’s, placed her on medication for this and that has improved her functioning.

Ms. Cook volunteers 20 hours each week for the Senior Companion Program. She is an RSVP volunteer with the "Hello, How are you?" program, that regularly calls people with little outside contact. She volunteers for a local hospice program with her pet therapy dog. The two of them have logged over 800 hospice visits in the past two years and 300 nursing home visits in the past three years.