Aging parents checklist: a printable page for your caregiver binder

October 4, 2026

Last updated: ____________________

From Centis, a free care notebook you talk to. Everything in this guide works with pen and paper too.

It usually happens at the worst moment. A new specialist, a pharmacist or a hospital admissions desk asks “what medications is she on?”, “who’s her main doctor?” or “any allergies?”. You know the answers are somewhere, across a drawer, three apps and your memory.

This checklist covers everything worth keeping in one place about a parent’s health, so the answers are ready when someone asks. It’s a list of information to have to hand, not a list of symptoms to watch for. What a change means is for their doctor to say.

Work through it once, then keep it up to date. The page is set up to print as a fill-in sheet.

The checklist

People to call

Main doctor: name, practice, phone number
Specialists: who they are, what each one sees your parent for, phone numbers
Pharmacy: name, phone number, opening hours
Dentist, optician, hearing care, if they see one
Other carers and family who help, and how to reach them
Who to contact first in an emergency

Medications

Every prescription: name, dose, when it’s taken, and who prescribed it
What each one is for, in the words their doctor used
Over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and supplements taken regularly
Allergies and past reactions to any medicine or food
Refill dates, or when each one runs out

Conditions and history

Diagnoses, as their doctors named them, with roughly when each was made
Operations and hospital stays, with dates
Vaccinations, with dates if you have them
Devices and aids: hearing aids, glasses, walking aids, a pacemaker

Insurance and documents

Insurance details: card numbers, plan, phone number
Photo ID, and where it’s kept
Whether their doctors can share information with you: your parent can tell them at an appointment, or sign the practice’s form so it’s on file
A healthcare power of attorney or advance directive, if they have one, and where the original is

Appointments

Upcoming appointments: date, time, who with, and what each is for
What was said at the last one, and anything you were asked to do

Recent changes

A dated log of what’s changed since the last appointment: new symptoms, falls, eating, sleep, mood, medication changes

Keeping it useful

A checklist filled in once and never touched again goes out of date faster than you’d expect. A few habits keep it worth having.

One place. A single binder, folder or document. Information spread across several places is hard to find in a hurry.
Date it. Put the date at the top whenever you update it, so anyone reading it knows how current it is.
Update it after every change. A new medication, a new doctor, a dose change, a hospital stay: change the list the same day, while you remember the details.
Bring it with you. To appointments, and especially to a hospital or a new specialist, where people will ask for all of it at once.
Keep it somewhere sensible. It holds private health and insurance details. Keep a copy where the people who help can find it, but not where anyone passing can read it.

Printing it

Print this page and it becomes a fill-in sheet: the checklist with space to write, without the website around it. Fill it in by hand, keep it at the front of the binder, and reprint it when it gets too crossed out to read.

The part that never stays current

Most of this list changes rarely. A doctor’s phone number or an insurance plan might stay the same for years. Recent changes is different. It goes out of date soonest, because something new happens every week.

How to keep track of an elderly parent's symptoms between visits covers how to keep that log. What to write down before a parent's doctor appointment covers turning it into a page for the appointment.

If writing it down is what keeps not happening, Centis keeps that part for you. You talk for thirty seconds after a visit, and it keeps a dated record of what changed in your own words. Before an appointment it lays the record out newest first. It’s free, and you can use it on your own without an account.