The theory of Kubler-Ross 5 Stages of Grief was applied while constructing the journal storyline of the patient. The 5 Stages of Grief is a theory developed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the 5 stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The grief cycle model is a useful perspective for understanding our own and other people’s emotional reaction to personal trauma and change, irrespective of the cause. The model was originally developed to explain the experience of those dying from terminal illness. It is now also widely used to explain the process of grief more broadly. From this model’s perspective, it is important to note that grief is not a linear process. Grief is considered to be fluid and as a result it is believed that most people do not progress through the stages of this model in an orderly manner (Baxter & Diehl, 1998). 

For example, the journal starts from the patient being denial after being diagnosed transitioned to anger because of confusing on his uncontrollable behaviour in the public. And then being depressed when he assumed his condition can’t be cured other than slows the progression, completely overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness. Eventually, acceptance of his condition, believe the people who loved him and believe his condition can be cured. The patient is also bargaining to have more time with his family and friends, to live like the days before dementia, he even wrote a reminder page for himself to remember the people who he loves and cares for him. It also applies to the audience who read through the journal pages or glimpse through the track titles as it is designated to trigger the feeling of grief, to create an emotional resonance, to let the audience feel the feeling of having dementia and the different stages of it. 

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Furthermore, as the theme of the envisioned information piece is evidence of existence, it is crucial to create a sense of nostalgia. Nostalgia arises from tender and yearnful reflection on meaningful life events or important persons from one’s past. The core components of nostalgia are self-reflection, autobiographical memory, emotional regulation and reward. (Yang et al., 2022) It isn’t just a happy trip down memory lane — in fact, nostalgic reflection often involves both negative and positive emotional states. Critically, it tends to follow a redemptive sequence in which negative feelings such as longing and loss give way to positive feelings such as happiness, social connectedness, gratitude, and hope. In other words, nostalgia is bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter. (Routledge, 2021) Nostalgia is also used in marketing to connect the brand with positive concepts or ideas from past. The goal is to associate the brand with the feelings of comfort and security.

In this project, the nostalgia of emotional regulation was applied while constructing the journal storyline of the patient, where the patient wrote a reminder for himself about who to remember; the nostalgia of reward was applied while produce the pieces, to attract the audience by the look of the pieces—something old, vintage and aged, something they had seen before, like the feeling of flipping through an old photo album. Thus, ‘Patient Journal: Young-Onset Dementia’ originated from a written Gapen book which is often used in secondary school. It was “packaged” in a document folder which replicates the manila card document folder that were also often used in secondary school. The folder was coffee stained and the content pages were burned or tea stained to make it look old, aged or well used. Besides, the initiative of producing a vinyl record album was to simplify the context to track titles which describe dementia stages across the journal. The album cover art and the acrylic-vinyl records of ‘Bliss of the Halcyon Days are Over’ was designed to let the audience have their own interpretation of the feeling of having dementia and the patient’s feeling through the visual representation.

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