In the 17th century, hearing aids came in the form of ear trumpets -- large, horn-shaped devices with an ear tube attached. Often the butt of jokes in cartoons and comic books, they would amplify sound when pointed toward whomever was speaking. You could almost get the same effect from cupping your hand behind your ear.

Now, more than 300 years later, hearing aids are of course much more technologically advanced. But some new models that hit the market in the past few months are getting even smaller, to the point of being nearly invisible and are capable of drowning out background noise without overamplifying loud sounds.

The older, bulky styles were ''something scary looking,'' says Ken Sheley, 64, of Oakland Park, who has been wearing a dot hearing aid, manufactured by ReSound, for two months. ''It's very tiny . . . When you're looking for it, you don't even see it'' because it sits behind the ear and a nearly transparent receiver sits in the ear.

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

Of the 37 million, more than 30 percent of men and about 25 percent of women 65 and older have a little trouble hearing and about 15 percent of men and 10 percent of women 65 and older are either deaf or have a lot of trouble hearing. Yet only 1 of 5 adults who could benefit from a hearing aid actually wears one. Reasons include the association with age and disability, denial, aesthetics and cost -- Medicare does not cover hearing aids for adults, but some insurance companies offer allowances toward the purchase.

Dr. Natalie Fernandez-Roque, an audiologist at Mercy Hospital's Professional Building, thinks the stigma surrounding hearing aids is fading as baby boomers ``work longer into their older years . . . Boomers should have no problem wearing something on their ear because people wear Bluetooth, iPod, etc.''

But unlike Bluetooth devices and iPod earphones, many of the newer digital hearing aids hide behind the ear. These advanced models are also tailored to the individual's hearing loss and designed to suppress noise, such as that of an airplane.

Here are some of the latest to hit the market:

• dot by ReSound

Price: from $1,000 each

''This is the smallest hearing aid I fit,'' says Dr. Teryl Dever, an assistant professor in the Department of Audiology at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale-Davie. ``Dot is very comfortable. Patients forget they have it on.''

Less than an inch long, it's available in three price ranges, the most costly featuring ultimate noise-reduction technology. Feedback cancellation, which keeps amplified sounds from being picked up by the microphone and re-amplified, is standard on all three models. The hearing aid fits behind the ear and is programmed to amplify only what the patient's hearing loss requires, therefore it has no volume control.

''Over-amplification was a problem years ago because we were not able to control individual frequency bands,'' says Dever, who fitted her father, Sheley, with two dot hearing aids, available since January.

He was 60 when he started experiencing hearing loss. ''I had lung cancer and the radiation, medication and chemotherapy kind of caused me some problems. My hearing was already going and it went a little more,'' he says.

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