My time at a nursing home helped me understand the challenges of caring for the elderly population. Taking care of the elderly requires a large and active workforce, emotional labor is the hardest part of the job, and the cost of elder care is taxing to residents and their families. Nearly all of us will come in contact with the long-term care (LTC) system. It might be scary to have conversations about what we want for long-term care but having these conversations now can remove layers of anxiety for when you need to put a plan in place.