How to use PD Tracker

Manual

A walkthrough of everything in the app, in the order you'll actually use it.

Jump to a section
  1. Getting started
  2. Logging symptoms
  3. Logging a fall
  4. Setting up medications
  5. Meals & food timing
  6. Notes & wellbeing
  7. History & Weekly views
  8. Printing a doctor's report
  9. Settings & backups
  10. Installing as an app
  11. Trying the demo

Getting started

The first time you open the app.

Open the app

Go to the app and you'll land on a short setup screen — no account, no password.

Name your tracker

Type anything you like — "My Tracker," a name, whatever helps you recognize it. This is just a label; it isn't sent anywhere.

Tap "Get Started"

You're straight into the Today view, ready to log. You can rename the tracker anytime later in Settings.

Logging symptoms

The Today tab is organized into Motor Symptoms, Non-Motor Symptoms, and Safety.

Basic logging

Tap a symptom button (Tremor, Balance, Dizziness, and so on). Some — like Tremor and Sleep/Fatigue — first ask which sub-type before continuing. Next you'll pick a severity: Mild, Moderate, or Severe.

Medication state (ON/OFF)

On the confirm screen you can optionally mark whether this happened while your medication was "on" (working) or "off" (wearing off) — useful for spotting patterns against your dosing schedule. This is optional; you can leave it as "Not sure."

Timing and late entries

Entries default to right now, but you can change the date or time — for example, if you're logging something that happened earlier and forgot at the time. The app marks it as a Late Entry automatically so it's clear in your history.

Notes and context

Every entry has an optional note field. Dizziness also offers quick context buttons (Sitting, Getting Up, Walking, Lying Down) since that context matters clinically.

Logging a fall

The Safety section has a dedicated Log a Fall button — tap it right after a fall happens. It's a single tap through to confirmation, kept simple on purpose since this is the entry you're least likely to want to fill out carefully in the moment.

Setting up medications

Nothing is pre-filled — you set this up once with your own prescription.

Opening Manage Medications

From the Today tab, scroll to the Medications section and tap + Manage Medications. You'll also find it under Settings.

Scheduled vs. As Needed

Choose Scheduled for medications taken at a fixed time each day, or As Needed (PRN) for ones you take on demand with a few dose options — like an inhaler or rescue tablets.

Choosing a medication

The dropdown lists common Parkinson's medications by class (Levodopa, Dopamine Agonists, MAO-B Inhibitors, COMT Inhibitors, and others) to save typing. Picking one fills in the name and a sensible icon shape. You can also just type your own — the dropdown never fills in a dose or time; that's always yours to enter.

Shape and color

Pick from six shapes (Tablet, Capsule, Liquid, Inhaler, Patch, Injection) and eight colors. This icon then shows up everywhere that medication appears — the schedule, your log, the printed report — so you can recognize it at a glance instead of reading text.

Food timing

If a medication needs to be taken away from protein (as levodopa often does), leave "Needs food timing" checked and set how many minutes before and after the dose to avoid eating — 60 and 30 are common defaults, but use whatever your own clinician advised. Medications that don't need this — most dopamine agonists or MAO-B inhibitors, for instance — can have the checkbox turned off, so they don't add a food restriction that doesn't apply to them.

Editing or removing a medication

Every medication in the list has a ✎ to edit it and a ✕ to remove it. Editing opens the same form pre-filled — change the dose, time, shape, color, or food-timing settings and save. Removing a medication doesn't touch anything you've already logged; past entries keep the dose and details exactly as they were recorded at the time.

Meals & food timing

The meal-timing card

If any medication has food timing turned on, the Today tab shows a card listing the day's "OK to eat" and "No food" windows, computed automatically from your medication schedule. If nothing needs food timing, this card doesn't appear at all.

Logging a meal

Tap Log a Meal. If you're inside a restricted window, the app gives you a heads-up first — you can still log it, this is just a reminder, not a lock.

Notes & wellbeing

At the bottom of the Today tab, you can rate your overall wellbeing for the day with a five-emoji scale, and write a free-text note about how the day went. Both save with that day's entries.

History & Weekly views

History

Step through any past day using the date arrows or the date picker. You'll see that day's entries, notes, and the same timing chart shown on Today.

Weekly

A 7-day grid showing symptom frequency and severity at a glance — useful for spotting whether something is trending up or down over the week.

The daily timing chart

Shown on both Today and History, this lines symptoms up against medication doses across the day, so patterns like "symptoms worsen right before the next dose" are easy to see visually.

Printing a doctor's report

Go to the Print tab, choose a date range, and tap Open Print View. It opens a clean, formatted report in a new window — use your browser's print function to print it or save it as a PDF to bring to an appointment.

Settings & backups

Renaming your tracker

Settings → change the name → Save Name.

Backing up your data

Settings → Export My Data (JSON) downloads everything as a file. Keep it somewhere safe — it's the only way to recover your data if this browser's storage is ever cleared.

Restoring or moving your data

Settings → Import Data (JSON) → choose a previously exported file. This replaces everything currently on the device, so you'll be asked to confirm first.

Backup reminders

On by default — the app will periodically suggest exporting a backup if it's been a while. You can snooze it for 3, 7, or 30 days, export right from the reminder, or turn reminders off entirely (toggle it back on in Settings anytime).

Clearing all data

Settings → Clear All Data — if you have anything logged, it offers to export a backup first, since deleting is permanent.

Installing as an app on your phone

Optional — PD Tracker works fine as a regular website too, but adding it to your home screen gets you a proper icon and a full-screen view without the browser's address bar. However you install it, opening the icon always takes you straight to the tracker.

iPhone (Safari)

  • Open the app in Safari.
  • Tap the Share icon (the square with an arrow pointing up) in the toolbar.
  • Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen.
  • Edit the name if you'd like, then tap Add.

An icon now appears on your home screen. Tapping it opens the tracker full-screen, without Safari's address bar.

Android (Chrome)

  • Open the app in Chrome.
  • Tap the three-dot menu in the top right.
  • Tap Add to Home screen or Install app (the wording varies by Chrome version).
  • Confirm the name, then tap Add or Install.

Chrome sometimes offers this automatically as a banner after you've used the site a bit — tapping Install there does the same thing.

Trying the demo

From the home page, "Try it first with sample data" loads the app with a week of realistic example entries — nothing you do in demo mode is saved, and no real data is touched. It's there so you can get a feel for the app before setting up your own tracker. Tap the red Exit Demo button in the top right to leave and return to the home page.