Shopping Part II: Strategies for Life, Living Well with Vision Loss

Renee Man, Certified Vision Rehabilitation Therapist
August 1, 2009

Last month’s column discussed helpful tips for the planning required for grocery shopping, such as knowing the store layout, list keeping and accessing sale flyers.  Now that you’ve got a well made list in hand, here are some ideas for making it easier to do the actual shopping.

The benefit of a good list is that it will greatly improve the quality of help it is possible to obtain in the store.  Most grocery stores will provide an employee to aid customers with shopping, should the customer require extra assistance. Often these employees serve as personal shoppers, walking through the store and picking out items along with the customer. Having a detailed and legible list will enable that employee to be as helpful as possible.  Calling the store ahead of time and shopping at off peak times will also increase the likelihood of receiving better assistance. Some people like to hand over their list to the aid and others prefer to cross off items or flip the cards or forward the digital recorder themselves. The key point is to have some control and participation in the actual selection of items to purchase.

 Low vision devices such as hand held magnifiers and portable electronic video magnifiers can be used to help read prices or to find the exact product needed. For example, it may be easy to find the soup section but the magnifier can help narrow down the exact location of the can of low salt mushroom soup on your list.  Knowing the details, like the brand names and size and color of containers is also helpful when selecting items. Telescopes may make it possible to read the signs hanging above each aisle indicating what items are located there.  Many orientation and mobility instructors are happy to do a lesson or two at the grocery store to teach the layout of a store and to give helpful tips on using low vision devices while there.

Grocery shopping is a situation where carrying a white cane can be used to great advantage. Strangers are much more likely to provide useful information, when asked for help, if they can identify the person as someone who has trouble seeing.  Even if a cane is not needed to navigate the store, having it visible in the cart lets others know to give detailed answers when asked for help, rather than an unhelpful finger point or the dreaded “It’s over there.”

If unable to see well enough to safely push the cart, another person can walk ahead and pull the cart.  This allows them to be the guide while retaining control of the cart and pace of walking. A handbag or small box can be propped in the child’s seat to hold the shopping list, cards or recorder. 

Now that the list is made and the grocery shopping is done, next month’s column will present strategies for checking out at the store, ideas for transporting groceries and ways to handle money.  

Perkins Outreach Services for Ages 55 and Older, Outreach@Perkins.org, 617-972-7643.

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