Caregiver Daily Log

Written for the next person, not for the file

A handover sheet exists so that whoever comes on at four knows what happened at eleven. That is a different document from a care plan, and it is filled in as the day goes rather than at the end of it.

Why mood has a column

Meals, fluids and medication get recorded because they are countable. Mood is often the first thing to change and the last thing anybody writes down, so it gets a column of its own.

Family and professional care

The same sheet works for relatives sharing care between them and for paid carers handing over formally. Neither arrangement survives on verbal handover alone.

What goes in each column

• Time — in the left-hand column, so the day reads downwards.
• Meals & fluids — what was offered and what was actually taken, which are not the same entry.
• Toileting — recorded factually and briefly.
• Mood — a word or two. Changes here often show first.
• Medication — given, refused or due; a refusal is information.
• Notes — visitors, calls, anything the next shift would want to know.

Printing it

Choose A4 or US Letter before you download and the table is laid out to fit that sheet — column widths are shares of the page, not fixed millimetres, so nothing is cut off at the right-hand edge. Alternate row shading can be turned off if you are photocopying in black and white, where a pale tint sometimes reproduces as a muddy grey. If you need more than one page, set the page count before downloading rather than printing the same PDF twice; the pages are then numbered, which matters the moment two of them get separated.