Medicine Tracker

One page, one week, four times a day

A row for each medication with space for the name, the dose and how often it is taken, then a grid of the seven days, each split into AM, noon, PM and bed. Tick as you take them.

Four to eight medications per sheet.

Ticking is not the point. Seeing the gaps is.

Anybody can remember whether they took this morning's tablet for about an hour. The question that matters is whether Tuesday teatime got missed, and no amount of trying to remember will answer it.

A week laid out as a grid makes an omission a visible hole rather than an absence of memory. That is the whole function, and it is why the sheet covers a week rather than a day — a single-day tracker tells you nothing you did not already know.

Where it matters most

Anyone on several medicines at different times of day, which is where genuine confusion starts. A course of antibiotics, where finishing it properly is the entire point and the last two days are where people stop.

A child's medication managed by two parents in two houses, where the sheet travels with them and settles the question of whether the morning dose was given.

Somebody being cared for by more than one person, where a shared written record replaces four separate assumptions.

And the fortnight after a hospital discharge, when the regime is new and nobody has a routine for it yet.

Take it to appointments

A completed sheet is a considerably better answer to "how have you been getting on with them?" than a verbal impression.

It shows the actual pattern of adherence, and it shows it honestly, including the days that were missed — which is what a prescriber needs in order to tell whether a drug is not working or simply not being taken. Those two need entirely different responses and are easy to confuse.

Fill in the dose column properly

Name, strength and how many. "Amlodipine 5mg, one tablet" rather than "the small white one".

It matters when somebody else has to take over, and it matters in an emergency. A tracker that only makes sense to the person who wrote it does half a job.

Settings and a caution

A title and the number of medications. A4 or US Letter, printed at 100%.

This is a paper record for your own use, not medical advice and not a substitute for the instructions on the packet or from a pharmacist. If a dose is missed, what to do about it depends entirely on the drug — ask, rather than assuming you should double up.