In my first pharmacy intern position, there was a regular patient who came in for meds and was blind. Often he came with a home nurse aid so she came with him to pick up medications and shop for food. On weekends the blind patient does come on his own and he does pick up his own meds or purchase OTC items. With blind patients, you have to earn their trust in order for them to allow you to counsel them. My pharmacist introduced me to him, and told him I was an intern and I could counsel him but he was a bit skeptical and afraid. For prescription medications, the pharmacist gave him different size bottles to tell between the different meds he was taking (lipitor small bottle, lisinopril medium size, etc). Since he took only a few meds, we didn't have to worry about additional bottle sizes.. but I would recommend if the blind patient had maybe 5 or 6 meds, you can use safety cap and non-safety cap to help distinguish the meds. Anyway, so to counsel the patient, the pharmacist took a pill out of the bottle and allowed the patient to touch and feel the med, and counseled him on proper use of the med. We would follow up with the home nurse aid and inform her of meds he picked up over the weekend, whenever she came in. I think maybe two months into constantly speaking to the blind patient over the phone and refilling his meds, saying hi and being friendly to him allowed me to gain his trust, so I was able to counsel him later on. He relied mainly on the pharmacist and me on OTC items, and asked for second opinions if he was purchasing something from another pharmacy. He was a really nice person, I miss working with disabled patients.
