Your dad mentions on the phone that he has been a bit more breathless since Tuesday. When you pop round after work, you try to piece the week together with him and your sister: has he been taking his morning and evening preventer inhaler at the usual times, how many times has he needed his reliever inhaler today, and where did he write down the oxygen readings the respiratory nurse asked him to bring to Friday's appointment?

Living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at home often involves two kinds of tracking at once: the steady daily routine that stays the same week after week, and the as-needed doses and readings that matter more when breathing feels harder. When a partner and one or two adult children all help out, keeping those details on paper pads and in separate text threads makes handovers harder than they need to be.

Your GP, respiratory nurse or specialist sets the action plan, the inhalers and the target readings. Medication Timer is a household software app for iPhone, Android and the web that handles the organisation side: one shared record of what was taken, when it was logged, and what readings you recorded, with no medical advice.

World COPD Day falls on Wednesday 18 November 2026, with the theme *Early Diagnosis and Management for a Better Life*. Whether your household is newly adjusting to an inhaler routine or looking after an older parent through the winter months, here is how to set up one calm log everyone can trust.

What your care team sets, and what the household log does

Most people managing COPD are given a written plan by their GP, respiratory clinic or pharmacist. That plan sets out which daily controller or preventer inhalers and tablets to take on a schedule, what minimum gap to leave between puffs or doses of an as-needed reliever, and which home readings (such as oxygen saturation with a pulse oximeter, peak flow or temperature) to record.

Medication Timer does not interpret your readings, judge whether a number is safe, or suggest changes to your treatment. If someone is more breathless than usual or you are unsure what their written action plan says to do next, follow your clinician's instructions or seek medical help.

What the household log does is remove the guesswork around the everyday facts:

• Was the morning or evening routine already taken?
• When was the last as-needed reliever dose logged, and how many times has it been used in the last 24 hours?
• What were the readings from the past few days, with their exact dates and times?

Setting up daily inhaler routines and as-needed timers

1. Group the steady morning and evening medicines into routines

Open Medications to add each regular inhaler, nebuliser solution or tablet, then open Family to place the scheduled items into daily routines at the clock times your clinician or pharmacist gave you (for example 8 am and 8 pm).

On Today, scheduled routines appear in order for the selected day, showing at a glance what has been marked taken, skipped or is still upcoming. Our guide on how to use medication routines walks through the schedule options.

2. Use an interval timer for as-needed reliever doses

For medicines taken only when needed, you enter the minimum interval and the maximum doses in 24 hours from the pack label or your written plan. When a dose is logged, Medication Timer counts down against the interval you set and shows how many doses have been logged in the rolling 24 hours (Free).

Instead of trying to remember whether a reliever puff was taken at 11 am or 1 pm, anyone checking the app can see the exact time it was logged and how much of the interval remains. See what is a dose timer and how does it help for how countdown timers work across the household.

3. Enable the health readings your clinic asked for

Under Family, select the person and enable the readings their care team asked them to keep under Health readings, such as oxygen saturation (SpO2), blood pressure or temperature (Free + more with Family Care). You can set a scheduled reminder cadence (Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Custom) and, if your clinic gave you a target range on paper, enter the low and high reference numbers on the reading (Free).

Every reading is saved with its date and time, and you can adjust the time if you are logging it a little after taking the measurement. For a closer look at setting up regular measurements, read our guide to tracking recurring health readings at home.

On the Free plan, each family member can have up to two daily routines and up to three combined dose routines and enabled health readings (up to twelve across the household). Family Care removes those limits if someone's routine is larger.

Sharing the routine across family carers

Care for an older parent or partner with COPD is often shared across the week: a spouse at home, a daughter who drops in before work, and a son who drives to clinic appointments.

With Family Care, you can invite each helper from Profile in Sharing & Access so everyone signs in with their own account rather than passing one phone or password around. You choose which family members and medications to share, and you can revoke access at any time if arrangements change.

When several carers share the household on Family Care, everyone sees the same live record on their own phone, including who logged the last dose and when (Last: with their name and the time). When one person logs a shared dose or reading, the matching reminder clears on the other caregivers' phones on a best-effort basis, cutting down on "did Mum already take her morning inhaler?" phone calls. Our caregiver sharing setup guide covers the setup step by step.

Flagging inhalers before they run low

Running out of a daily inhaler right before a weekend adds unnecessary stress. Medication Timer does not count individual puffs or tablets, because household usage varies; instead, anyone can swipe Low on a dose row or turn on Running low for that medicine as soon as a pack or canister is getting light (Free).

With Family Care on iPhone or Android, flagged items also appear on the shared To pick up shopping list, with an optional daily buy reminder until whoever does the pharmacy run picks it up and clears the flag. See how to organise refill dates for your family for practical ways to stay ahead of repeats.

When a winter chest infection or flare-up starts

Colds and winter bugs often mean a temporary change of pace, such as a short course of steroids or antibiotics prescribed in a rescue pack, extra temperature checks, or closer attention to as-needed timers.

Rather than cluttering the everyday schedule, open Care and tap Start care for that family member (Free). A Care session keeps the temporary illness timeline, as-needed timers, temperatures and symptoms together in one place for the duration of the episode, while their regular daily routines continue on Today.

When they are back to their usual baseline, tap End care, and use Archive session (Free and Family Care) to tidy the episode out of the active Care tab. Our guide on how to archive illness records for your family explains how ended and archived sessions work.

Bringing a clear record to the respiratory review

Before a GP visit or respiratory nurse review, you can step back through recent days on Today. The Free plan shows full detail for the last three local calendar days.

With Family Care, you get unlimited calendar history on Today, longer-range reading trends, and family reports for a chosen date range that can be printed or saved as a PDF from the web app. Bringing a clear timeline of logged doses and readings lets you spend the appointment talking about how your family member is doing, rather than trying to reconstruct the month from memory.

Medication Timer is free to start on iPhone, Android and the web. Family Care pricing is shown in the app store for your region.

Questions? Browse the help centre or contact support from Profile in the app.