Nobody else noticed this?

So last week, when I was up in DC, I went to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly with my aunt. As many reviews have been reporting, it is very good and it does portray the French health care system as simply brimming over with sexy females who are willing to pay outrageous amounts of personal attention to their patients. However, I was really bothered by the fact that the events of the novel occur in 1996-97 and the most advanced example of technology is a television. Now I know eye tracking has not been around for that long, but I simply refuse to believe that there was no technology around at the time that would've been more useful for a person who was completely paralyzed than a television and saying letters very slowly so they could communicate. The man was the editor of Elle; money should not have been a problem.

Of course, this seems to be a question no one else had about the movie, so maybe I am wildly misguided, but I was distracted throughout the movie by the question.