Being a caregiver involves dealing with a seemingly infinite number of variables. At times one may be in a state of exhaustion making it impossible to keep everything in memory or even to always realize the importance of things in unfamiliar circumstances. Keeping a "chart" for your kitty can build confidence that you're doing the best that you can and help you learn as you go along.

The ability to present a detailed and well-organized history is invaluable when visiting a vet. Not only is it likely to be more complete than the verbal updates from memory typically taken by the vet in the exam room but also a time-saver. (See Preparing for a Visit to the Vet)

---

Detailed patient records maintained on a daily basis may be referred to regularly in making treatment decisions. They also provide clues which lead to the recognition of acute developments which might need professional attention.

Categories of information for which logs are typically used include:

• Recording doses of meds and times given rather than relying on memory to ensure nothing's missed (or to make note of doses which might have been skipped or given off-schedule).
• Documenting the response to various foods, often worrisome for kitties with chronic issues.
• Tracking trends in symptoms and behavior patterns.
• Correlating between changes in treatments, symptoms, appetite, behavior and activity levels.
• Notes on Vet visits including summaries of lab reports, new diagnoses, prescriptions, treatment changes, referrals to specialists, etc.
• Keeping a diary of daily observations. Descriptions of the good times can be encouraging if reviewed when things aren't going so great.

---

Design Considerations

---

• Ease of entry. All information should be recorded immediately, so the system should be designed to make this convenient. Deferring entry to a later time can result in information being inaccurately remembered or forgotten entirely, leaving gaps in the history.
• Amount of detail. Nothing is unimportant. Note should be made of all observations related to an entry including its timing relative to other events. Examples might be if a vomiting episode occurred first thing in the morning or immediately after eating, whether a medication helped a kitty's appetite or not, whether she purred or growled, etc.
• Clarity and readability. Records are only useful if you can easily find what you're looking for.

  Manual sheets should place information in predictable locations with ample room allotted for comments to fit without being crowded or overflowing their space.

  Automated systems should provide a means of locating desired information without extensive scrolling or the necessity of going through long sequences of dialogs to enter search criteria each time.

---

Manual Log Sheets

---

A good method is to use a clipboard and pre-printed forms with a pen or pencil attached. Keeping it always handy makes it easy to record notes on the spot without having to go to a computer. The manual records can later be transferred into the computer database if desired for future reference.

The form can be created using either a word processor (like Word) or spreadsheet (Excel) with lines and columns which can be printed out as blanks for the clipboard. Using a wide format (landscape) allows more room for comments on each line. Leaving a wide margin on the long edge provides space to punch the pages for a 3-ring binder so only the sheet currently in use need be on the clipboard .

Greatest flexibility is afforded by having each line represent a specific date and time as entered [first two columns] . Pre-formatting the sheet with dates already set ends up either not providing enough room for comments or wasted space.

Column headings may indicate specific items so that only values need be entered (med doses, calories consumed, etc.) In order to leave plenty of room for comments the number of columns on each sheet should be limited by using separate pages for different categories (see Categories).

Note: Dates and times need only be written in when they change since there are generally several entries during any given day and a time entry may have more than one line of comments.. Leaving the space in the columns blank between changes improves the readability of the sheet.

Automated Methods

---

A well-designed system on a computer can give greatly enhanced abilities to organize and retrieve large amounts of information. However, in order to satisfy the "ease of entry" requirement the computer should always be running and at the ready, otherwise it might be best to use a clipboard at the point-of-care and 'transfer the information later.

The simplest way to set up a log on a computer is to create a spreadsheet patterned after the manual system with different pages, each configured so that all columns are visible on the screen at once.

Moderately experienced users should be able to use drop-down lists for easy entry of things like different types of cat food, behaviors like "perky", "purring, "withdrawn", "tired" or symptoms like "nauseous", "wobbly", or "hyperactive.".

Users at that level will also be able to find entries through the use of filters, for instance to display as a group all episodes of vomiting, which foods were enjoyed or rejected, or when the last dose of a particular med was given.

Links may also be embedded to display external documents such as lab reports, photos, and other resources.

Additional streamlining can be accomplished by the use of macros to repeat sequences of keystrokes regularly used for searches.

---

Complete automation can be achieved by those with advanced programming skills. . Input forms may be designed offering a great number of option choices and queries may be displayed in a clear and easy-to-read format. In fact, the log lines themselves may actually be hidden out of the way to prevent accidental erasure of information.