Marketers work to make hearing aids a fashion must-have

If you're a baby boomer and loathe the idea of a hearing aid - those clunky, squealing contraptions in your ears - you might consider something a little more modern:

Say, a personal communication assistant. An Audéo or a Passion perhaps?

Instead of the old putty-colored style, try something in a hip Creme Brulee or a racy Pinot Noir.

OK, yes, yes, these are all hearing aids we're talking about here, (and those are actual, available shades) but they're nothing like what you remember parents and grandparents fumbling around with.

As the 78 million baby boomers move into hearing loss territory, marketers have revamped hearing aids to appeal to this major

demographic group that not only cares about cutting-edge technology but style.

The new breed of "hearing devices" pop up on Web sites with slogans like "What's your Vibe" and "Life, Amplified," and are worn by models who are as buff as they are hip.

Hardly the stuff of Geritol commercials.

As Dr. Barry Strasnick, a hearing and balance specialist at Eastern Virginia Medical School, puts it, "Hearing aids are cool now."

Still, not everyone is getting the message.

It's estimated that only 1 of 5 adults who could benefit from a hearing aid wears one.

It's not just a matter of vanity and denial - which comes up regularly with boomers, according to audiologists and doctors - but cost.

A pair can cost $2,000 to $8,000, and insurance often doesn't cover it. Even Medicare, the federal insurance for people 65 and older and the disabled, doesn't cover hearing aids in most cases.

The number of people with hearing loss is increasing, not just because of the graying of America, but because of the noisy environment we live in.

The past few decades have brought layer upon layer of assaults to hearing: Jet engines. Rock concerts. Construction. Video games. Power tools and leaf blowers. Hair dryers. Digital music players cranked up and piped right into the ear canal.

"What used to be a disease of the elderly is now likely in middle age," Strasnick said. "That progression has forced technology to adapt to younger generations."

About 37 million adults have some form of hearing loss, according to 2006 data from the National Center for Health Statistics, an increase from 31.5 million in 2000.

The revamping of hearing aids is not just about need, though, but about tapping into the lucrative baby-boomer market. The population with the lowest penetration of hearing aids - those with mild to moderate hearing loss - can be found at the heart of the baby boomer generation.

Tena Barton, 48, of Virginia Beach, began losing her hearing about two decades ago, a experience she calls one of the most frustrating of her life.

Like many of her generation, she attended rock concerts regularly and cranked the volume up in her car in her younger years. She also had several relatives who had hearing loss at fairly young ages.

By 30, she noticed she kept asking people to repeat themselves, and she turned the volume of the TV louder and louder. She'd be sitting with her husband and say, "You can hear this?

He could. And he couldn't believe how loud she wanted it.

When she was fitted with her first pair of hearing aids, "I walked out and I could hear the gravel crunch. It was the most amazing sound. I had no idea how much I was missing."

She's had five or six pairs since then, and they've become increasingly smaller and sophisticated.

One pair fits down in the canal of her ear and is barely visible. Another perches behind her ear with a clear tube that leads inconspicuously to a receiver in her ear canal.

Her husband was in the military, and their insurance has covered the aids until now, but now that he's retired from the Marines, she's on her own.

At $5,000 a pair, she's hoping her current ones will last a while. Even with the improved technology, though, she said hearing aids don't make up for all the loss, particularly over the phone where she can't read lips. Even if she tells people she's hearing-impaired, "They get angry, or they act like you're stupid."

Don Walker, 65, of Norfolk, is a former Navy pilot and spent hours in noisy cockpits. Now a Navy auditor, he believes the noise knocked out a specific range of his hearing.

He figures he's been struggling to hear for years now. "It's insidious, it literally creeps up on you. You don't know what you're not hearing. You make adjustments, accommodations, and you don't recognize it for what it is."

Earlier this year, he realized he didn't enjoy going out with friends anymore because he couldn't catch what they were saying. He got tired of nodding his head even when he didn't hear.

He went to see audiologist Theresa Bartlett in Norfolk.

His hearing aid is programmed to amplify the range he can't hear. He was surprised, even in the office, when he could hear paper rustling.

Plus, the aids were so small and inconspicuous, no one even knew he had them. He forgot about them one night and wore them to bed.

"Don't tell my audiologist."

Bartlett and Molly Howlett, who both work at Virginia Hearing Consultants in Norfolk, said most people come in expecting "the bubble gum in the ear or banana behind it" version of hearing aids.

That's one reason people wait an average of seven years after they start losing hearing to get a set.

The newer models don't block the ear canal, which helps in hearing. They're tiny slips of metal and plastic, some with a remote that makes the aid compatible with cell phones, digital music players and GPS units. Howlett said clients aren't thrilled about carrying the remote with them, but even those are getting smaller.

And forget about going with the putty color ubiquitous in days of yore.

There's Pure Passion (red), Green with Envy (lime green) and Lunar Eclipse (black and silver).

"People will say, "If I have to wear one, I want it to be fun," Howlett said.

The problem with waiting too long to get one is the brain adjusts to not hearing quiet sounds, and then when you regain that ability, it can be overstimulating. People find the noise distracting, even though it's what everyone hears, and the hearing aids get left in a drawer.

Fifty-four-year old Cheryl McCann figures her hearing started to fade about 10 years ago. She grew up near a noisy airport. "The biggest thing is you have to keep saying 'Huh?' and eventually people get tired of that," said McCann, who lives in Norfolk and works as a financial analyst.

Once someone said to her, "Hasta la vista," but she thought he said, "Have a nice Easter."

She also has ringing in her ears. The aids she bought last year don't help with that but they have helped her distinguish the soft consonants she kept confusing.

Walker doesn't split hairs about why it took a while to get his hearing tested. "Ego. Pride. No one wants to get old."

But Strasnick said that since people are being tested younger - in Virginia newborns are screened in hospitals after birth - it's getting more acceptable for people of any age to wear them.

He'd like to see the day when hearing aids are viewed more like eye glasses rather than a sign of old age. "When people see the young and the old with them, the stigma is more like a vision loss, it's more acceptable."

Besides, with the advent of hands-free cell phones, Bluetooth, MP3 players and iPods, "everyone is walking around with something in their ear anyway."

Elizabeth Simpson, (757) 446-2635, elizabeth.simpson@pilotonline.com