The falls you remember are the ones that hurt. The falls that matter for the night route are the ones you write down, because a short, plain log will show you things your memory keeps blurring together: the hour, the stop, and what was happening right before she went down.

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What to write for each fall

Use one line per fall, on paper you keep in the same place as the route card. Write the rough time, even if it is only before midnight, around two, or before five. Write where she was, using the six stops: bed edge, the floor between bed and door, the hallway, the bathroom door, the toilet, the tub edge, or the walk back to bed. Note whether she was going toward the bathroom or coming back, and whether she had been up already or was just waking.

Then write the conditions. Was the light on, and did she reach the switch or the lamp? Was she wearing her glasses, and what was on her feet? Had she been asleep for a long stretch or only a short one? Did she call out before she moved, or was she quiet? Write down anything given that evening, and take the question of its timing to her physician or pharmacist rather than trying to read it yourself. Keep each line short. You are recording facts, not building a case.

Read the hour column first

Once you have a few weeks of entries, scan the times before you look at anything else. If most falls cluster in the same window, such as the first hour after she goes to bed or the stretch between one and three in the morning, that is a pattern worth bringing to someone who can examine her. If the falls come on the return trip, the trouble may begin after she has settled, when she is less alert and more likely to rush the last few steps back to bed.

Do not treat the log as a diagnosis. It tells you where to look, and it tells the doctor where to ask. Whether a fall pattern points to balance, blood pressure on standing, sleep, vision or something else is a question for her physician.

Log the times she caught herself

Add a line whenever she stopped herself at the bed edge, grabbed the wall, or sat down halfway. These entries are not falls, but they show you which stop is hardest for her on a given night. A cluster of near-catches at the same stop tells you where the next fall is likely to come from, and that is the stop to walk through first with a tape measure and a flashlight.

Bring the page to the appointment

When you sit down with her physician, the log will answer most of the questions they would otherwise have to ask you from memory: how many falls, at what hours, from which stops, and what she was doing just before. Bring the page, not a summary of it. If anything in the log suggests a head strike, fainting, new confusion or a fall she could not get up from, tell the doctor that first and follow their instructions for how quickly to be seen.

What the log is for

The log tells you which of the six stops needs fixing first and which can wait. It tells the doctor what to examine and what to ask about. It also gives you something steadier than memory to work from at three in the morning, when you are deciding what to do next. It is not a verdict on her, and it is not a test you pass or fail. It is a record of one hard stretch of nights, kept so the next decision rests on what actually happened.