The Hearing Aid as Fashion Statement

By Anne Eisenberg from the NYT - This hearing aid looks more like an earring. Its tiny triangular body comes in exuberant colors like sunset orange, racing green or cabernet red; a slender wisp of wire uncoils gracefully from the body to an earpod no bigger than a teardrop.

But is indeed a hearing appliance, made by the Danish company Oticon. It is called Delta, after its triangular housing that contains the microphones and signal-processing electronics. Introduced in May [2006], the device is designed for people typically in their 40's, 50's or older who are starting to lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds but hate doing anything about it.

"This new design is appealing to people who traditionally are reluctant to seek help" for hearing loss, said Ed Bravo, an audiologist at Audio Help Associates in New York. An appliance that looks this hip, though, may overcome that barrier; Dr. Bravo has fitted many clients with it since May.

The hearing aid cost about $2,000 to $3,000, depending on the model; typically, people need one for each ear, said Gordon Wilson, vice president for marketing at the company's American headquarters in Somerset, N.J.

Customers are drawn by both the smallness of the devices - it's hard to see unless wearers lift their hair and push down the tops of their ears - and its smart appearance, said John Voss, who has fitted patients with it at Hearing Associates' offices in Duluth and Grand Rapids, Minn. "People want the smallness so no one will see it, but once they get it, they are happy to show it off."

Cathleen Osborn, 45, who has dark brown hair, picked a pair of hearing aids with a leopard-skin design sold by Harbor Audiology and Hearing Services in Gig Harbor, Wash. "They go with my hair - and my personality," she said, but added that the devices were usually not noticeable. "From the day I wore them, they just completely changed my world," she said. "I can hear people talking in the back of the car. I can even hear whispers."

The device is not for every hearing loss, said Dennis L. Kisiel, an audiologist in New York City. “It’s typically for younger people, but also for people in their 80’s and even 90’s in the early stages of hearing loss” who have problems understanding conversations in noisy restaurants or at meetings, he said. “These people need amplification in the high frequencies” as well as programming that helps the device reduce background noise.

Once hearing loss becomes severe, though, and low- and mid-range frequencies are affected, Delta has drawbacks, he said. The small batteries have a relatively short life, typically five to seven days. “My patients tend to wear this device much longer than other instruments they’ve had,” he said, and are sometimes bothered by having to change the batteries. And its extreme smallness could pose difficulties for elderly persons whose hands shake, Dr. Kisiel added.

Other companies have effective hearing aids, he said, but none with quite the same stylish design.

The details of style are no accident, said Mr. Wilson of Oticon. The Delta incorporates much of the same technology found in an earlier Oticon product, the Syncro, introduced in 2004, including software that mimics natural hearing. But many potential users would not give the technology a try, he said: “People just didn’t want to be seen wearing a hearing aid.”

Indeed, many people have strong aversions to hearing aids, said Dr. Robert Green, an ear, nose and throat specialist in Manhattan who was amused to learn that there was a hearing aid with the moxie to come in a color like “green chameleon.” “Unfortunately, there is a powerful stigma attached to hearing aids,” he said. “People don’t think twice about getting eyeglasses, but hearing aids are a different story.”

In 2004, Oticon hired the consulting firm Olson Zaltman Associates to help it address this aversion. “We found that some people used cost as an excuse to postpone the purchase,” said Lindsay Zaltman, managing director of the company, speaking from the company’s office in Pittsburgh. But there were also deeper issues. Hearing aids were perceived as “a neon sign on your forehead saying, ‘I’m flawed, I’m old,’ ” he said.

The brash new styling of the Delta is part of a strategy to fight this impression. In a trial study of people who wore the device for a few weeks, some users said their friends mistook the hearing aids for wireless headsets used with cellphones, Mr. Zaltman said. “So this thing with a negative stigma started to change to something smarter and cooler-looking, taking on this idea that you could want people to see this.”

It’s too early to know if the strategy is working, but Mr. Wilson says sales have been brisk. “Reader surveys show that customers are happy with Delta,” he said.

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Last Updated: 04/22/2008