Love stories about caregiving and Alzheimer's disease: a performative methodology.

Love Stories is a spoken-word performance created from data gathered from family caregivers about their experiences of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's disease. We present the Love Stories script with an accompanying methodological commentary and put forward a framework of 'Loving Research' based on a model of dementia care proposed by the late Tom Kitwood. Kitwood proposed a five-part model of psychological needs of people with dementia centred on the fundamental and universal human yearning for love. Loving care brings to the person with dementia opportunities for attachment, identity, inclusion, occupation and comfort. Loving Research, we argue, brings these same qualities to readers, viewers and research participants.