Dementia care at home: a daily record the whole family can share

1. Why the record matters more with dementia

In most care, the person is the record of last resort: ask them and they will tell you. Dementia removes that. A parent may say she has eaten when she has not, that nobody came when the carer left ten minutes ago, that she took her tablets when they are still in the blister pack. None of this is deliberate. It means the carers' record is the only record, and gaps in it are gaps in the truth.

Dementia also changes. A medicine stops working, a new behaviour appears, nights become disturbed. Clinicians make decisions on patterns over weeks, and patterns are invisible without a record made daily.

2. What a daily record should capture

• Each call: who came, when they arrived and left, what was done.
• Food and drink: what was offered, what was taken. Weight loss and dehydration are common and easy to miss without it.
• Medication: every dose as given, prompted, refused or not required, with a reason for refusals. Refusals are a signal.
• Mood and behaviour: calm, anxious, confused, agitated, with what seemed to trigger it and what helped. In the carer's words, not a score.
• Sleep and nights: if a carer is there, or if the family hears of a disturbed night.
• Safety: falls, near falls, wandering, the front door, the cooker.
• Skin and continence where they are part of the care.
• Anything to watch for the next carer: "left the gas on", "asked for Dad again", "new bruise on left arm".

3. The same faces, the same routine

People with dementia do better with familiar carers and a steady routine. That argues for a small team and a weekly pattern that rarely changes, which is exactly what a direct payment lets a family build. It also means that when a carer is away, the replacement must be able to pick up the routine from the record: the order things are done, the words that calm, the things that upset. A good record is the routine, written down by the people who know it.

4. What the GP and the memory clinic want

At a review, the questions are always the same. How is she sleeping? Is she eating? Is she taking the medication? Has anything changed? Any falls? A family answering from memory gives impressions. A family with a record gives dates and patterns: refused the evening dose on nine of the last fourteen days; two falls in the last month, both in the early evening; eating well at lunch, little at tea. Decisions about medication, about more support, about whether home is still safe, are made on exactly that evidence.

5. The family at a distance

Dementia care usually falls to one child, with others wanting to help and not knowing how. The one at the sharp end spends evenings relaying the day to brothers and sisters. The ones at a distance feel shut out or, worse, suspicious that things are being kept from them. A shared record ends both. Everyone sees the same day, as it happens, and conversations turn from "what happened?" to "what shall we do?".

6. How Carelo's Personal plan does it

A small team on a steady pattern. Set the week's calls once with the carer who normally does each. The pattern repeats; changes are made only on the week they happen. Each carer's Carelo app shows their own calls.

Notes at every call, in the carer's words. Food, mood, sleep, safety, anything to watch, written before the carer checks out. The next carer reads it before they arrive. The diary holds every note ever written about your parent and can be read by date.

Medication with refusals visible. Every dose recorded as given, prompted, refused, not required or not given with a reason. A run of refusals is seen in days, with the dates to show the GP.

Check-ins you can trust. The carer checks in at the door with the time and the location, so "nobody came this morning" can be answered kindly and truthfully.

Everyone sees the same day. Brothers and sisters open the family app and see today's calls as they happen, every note and the medication log, and can message the household. The first family login is included; extra logins are £10 a month each, up to five.

Print it for the clinic. Export or print any period: the visits, the notes, the MAR chart.