Free printable seizure diary template (and why an app works better)

If you've been asked to keep a seizure diary — by your GP, neurologist, or epilepsy nurse — a simple template is the easiest place to start. Below is a free printable seizure diary you can use straight away, along with the exact columns that make a log genuinely useful, and an honest look at where paper falls short.

What to include in a seizure diary

A good seizure log isn't just "date and time". The columns below are the ones your medical team actually use to make decisions, and the same ones that strengthen a PIP claim:

• Date and time — as precise as you can
• Duration — how long the seizure itself lasted
• Type — tonic-clonic, focal, absence, or your own description
• What happened before — sleep, stress, missed medication, illness
• Recovery time — how long until you felt normal again (often the biggest impact)
• Injuries or notes — falls, tongue bites, anything unusual

Printable seizure diary template

Use your browser to print this table (press Ctrl + P, or ⌘ + P on a Mac). Print a few copies and keep them somewhere handy.

Where paper diaries fall down

A printable template is a fine starting point, but it's worth knowing the common problems before you rely on one — because they're the reason most people eventually switch:

• It's never with you. Seizures don't wait until you're at your desk. If the sheet is at home, the event gets logged later — or not at all.
• After a seizure you often can't write. Confusion and fatigue mean the details you most wanted to capture are the ones you miss.
• Timestamps aren't reliable. A time written from memory an hour later isn't the same as one recorded at the moment — which matters for DVLA and benefits evidence.
• Carers can't contribute. The seizures you don't remember are exactly the ones someone else witnessed — and a paper sheet in your bag can't capture their account.
• It's hard to share. Turning a paper diary into something your neurologist can read in a 10-minute appointment usually means rewriting it.

We go deeper on this in why pen-and-paper seizure diaries fail and digital vs paper.

The same template, without the drawbacks

A digital tracker keeps exactly these columns but fixes the practical problems: it's on the phone that's already in your pocket, it timestamps automatically the moment you tap, a carer can add what they saw, and it produces a clean PDF report for appointments in one tap. You get the simplicity of the template with none of the "I forgot to write it down".