DAMIAN CLARKNavy Seaman Recruit

Damian Clark, son of Carl K.and Roxie L. Clark of Yank-ton, recently completed U.S.Navy basic training at Re-cruit Training Command,Great Lakes, Ill.

During the eight-weekprogram, Clark completed avariety of training which in-cluded classroom study andpractical instruction onnaval customs, first aid, fire-fighting, water safety andsurvival, and shipboard andaircraft safety. An emphasiswas also placed on physicalfitness.

The capstone event ofboot camp is “Battle Sta-tions.” This exercise gives re-cruits the skills andconfidence they need to suc-ceed in the fleet. “Battle Sta-tions” is designed togalvanize the basic warriorattributes of sacrifice, dedi-cation, teamwork and en-durance in each recruitthrough the practical appli-cation of basic Navy skillsand the core values of Honor,Courage and Commitment.Its distinctly “Navy” flavorwas designed to take into ac-count what it means to be aSailor.

Clark is a 2010 graduateof Yankton High School ofYankton.

BY DR. MIKE ROSMANN

The Midwest Rural Agri-cultural Safety and HealthConference in Ames in mid-November featured reviewsof changes in agri-culture during thepast 40 years,along with predic-tions about whatthe next 40 yearswill offer. Some ofthe people whom Imost respect fortheir understand-ing of agricultureand rural life ten-dered their as-sessments.

This is the firstof two columnsabout the nearbyfuture of agriculture. No-body can predict more thana few years anymore.

Dr. Kelley Donham, an in-ternational leader in theagricultural medicine fieldwho recently retired as di-rector of Iowa’s Center forAgricultural Safety andHealth and is now emeritusprofessor at the Universityof Iowa, indicated that farm-ing fatalities are about halfas likely as they were 40years ago, thanks to im-provements in injury pre-vention, farmer healtheducation and machinerydesign.

Recent reductions in fed-eral funding could slowprogress in the field overthe next few years, Donhamadvised. Alternative re-sources for basic research,such as partnerships withproducer and consumergroups and a “research-to-practice” approach are criti-cal in keeping themomentum going towardhealthier farming.

Certifying farms as safeenvironments, annual re-views of farm family healthat AgriSafe Clinics, and tyingthese preventive ap-proaches to reductions in in-surance premiums for farmfamily health insurance,worker compensation costsand farm liability policiesare important avenues forcontinued pursuit, Donhamsaid.

Who are today’s mostproductive farmers? Highlyrespected rural sociologistsand economists, Drs. MikeDuffy and Paul Lasley ofIowa State University, de-scribed today’s farmers andwhat the next few yearsoffer for agriculture, basedon their annual Iowa RuralLife Poll and surveys offarmland values, and na-tional trends in agriculture.

Already, the top 15 per-cent of farms produce 85percent of U.S. food, fiberand other consumable agri-cultural products. The trendtoward fewer farmers pro-ducing an ever larger shareof agricultural goods willcontinue and could speedup.

These increasingly largeoperators will own less ofthe land they farm, but theywill gain an ever larger shareof the farm product market-place, Duffy said. The num-ber of small farms withoperators who pursue farm-ing mainly as a lifestyle con-nection to the landcontinues to increase buttheir portion of the totalagricultural goods producedcontinues to decline.

Farmland prices? Duffysaid the boom in farmlandvalues over the past fewyears in Iowa and most ofthe Midwest is reminiscentof the booms that occurredin the 1920s and during the

latter half of the 1970s andfirst couple years of the1980s. Both eras precededeconomic depressions inagriculture.

Now we are in anotherera of farmlandprice escalation, orpossibly at thehigh point, Duffysuggested. Farm-land prices willprobably retract20-30 percent overthe next few years,but any economicdepression in agri-culture will be gen-tler than those inthe last century.

There are manyuncertainties. Duffyand Lasley listed

uncertainties to include: cli-mate change, lack of a fed-eral Farm Bill, possiblechanges in crop insuranceand environmental regula-tions.

There also are issues at-tributable to GMOs, foodsafety and lack of access tosome markets, as well asfarmers being blamed foreverything that is wrongand farmers sensing loss ofcontrol.

Agriculture in the futurewill depend increasingly ontechnology, said Dr. PaulGunderson. He is past direc-tor of the National Farm Med-icine Center, the currentdirector of the Dakota Centerfor Technology-OptimizedAgriculture and has headedseveral United Nations com-missions on food and laborissues.

Gunderson said 92 per-cent of central U.S. agricul-tural producers routinely useone or more precision agri-culture technologies. Thesemight include GPS (global po-sitioning systems) that usesatellite communications toguide farming, such as con-tinuous recording of cropyields during harvest; thedata enable calculating rec-ommended soil nutrients forall parcels next year to opti-mize production throughouteach field.

There are many precisionagriculture technology appli-cations. Gunderson men-tioned use of unmannedaerial viewers (UAVs), whichare drone aircraft that can flyover pastures to assess thelocations and health of graz-ing animals.

The UAVs can sense thebody temperatures, digestiveactivities, and a host ofhealth indicators by flyingclose enough to the animalsto detect and report them tothe herd manager. The herdmanager can select and treatanimals needing assistance;perhaps in the future UAV ro-bots will conduct the treat-ments of animals needingveterinary interventions.

Geo-tagging is anothertechnology that has arrived.Gunderson recommendedthat every farmer carry a cellphone on his/her body sothat any person can be lo-cated through signal triangu-lation in case of a reportedevent needing a response orwhen there is no response toa requested reply.

Farming is changing. Nextweek I will offer my viewsabout what the immediate fu-ture holds. I will address theissues as a farm producer, abehavioral health specialist,researcher and observer ofagriculture for many years. Iwelcome your thoughts.

Dr. Rosmann is a Harlan,Iowa, farmer and psycholo-gist, available at: www.agbe-havioralhealth.com.

Sponsored By Lewis & ClarkBehavioral Health

Wednesday, 12.11.13ON THE WEB: www.yankton.net

NEWSROOM: News@yankton.net PRESS DAKOTAN P A G E 5

life

Dr. Mike

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THE P A N T R Y

Best Wishes for Christmas

& the New Year!

is almost over!

Saturday, December 14 th

and Saturday, December 21 st

9:30am-4:00pm

The Pantry’s

Going Out Of Business SALE Everything MUST GO… 75% Off

Visiting Hours

Dealing With Psoriatic ArthritisLEANN BASSING, MDYankton Medical Clinic, P.C.

Most people don’t realize there is aspecific kind of arthritis that can ac-company psoriasis skin disease. Thatis, until commercials of professionalgolfer Phil Mikkelson endorsing a med-ication to treat his own diagnosis ofPsoriatic Arthritis (PsA) started to ap-pear on television. First of all, Psoriasisis a disease that is typically manifestedas thickened red scaly plaques on thesurfaces of elbows or knees, but alsocan occur on the scalp or trunk. Myphysical examination of new patientsusually includes a close inspection ofthese areas, as well as a few areaswhere psoriasis likes to ‘hide,’ includingthe external auditory ear canal, umbili-cus (belly button), nails, and superiorgluteal cleft (top of the buttocks). If Ican find any clues in these areas, it canaffect the diagnosis in a significant way!

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is an inflam-matory joint disease that not only cancause inflammation in joints, but alsoinflammation of tendons. Another im-portant difference of Psoriatic arthritisfrom Rheumatoid arthritis, which is themost common type of inflammatoryarthritis, is PsA’s ability to affect thejoints of the low back, or specifically,the sacroiliac joints. These are two longjoints where the tailbone meets thepelvis. Typically, patients who have in-flammation in these joints, calledSacroiliitis, will experience significant

low back stiffness that is most promi-nent in the mornings. This is becauseinflammation is more prevalent afterbeing inactive throughout the night.When PsA was defined as a specific dis-ease entity back in the early 1970’s, fivesubsets were identified based on clini-cal features. These include number ofjoints involved (polyarticular = 5 ormore joints versus oligoarticular = 4 orfewer joints affected), pattern of jointinvolvement (distal interphalangeal =small knuckles at the ends of the fin-gers versus spondylitis = spine is af-fected), and possible deformingarthritis (mutilans) (1).

Estimates of how many people withpsoriasis are also affected by PsA varygreatly depending on the study method.The frequency of PsA in patients withpreviously diagnosed psoriasis variesfrom 1% to 39%, with the wide range ex-isting mainly due to differences in diag-nostic criteria (1). Most people arebetween the ages of 30-55 years old atthe time they are diagnosed, and menare as equally affected as women. Whilemost patients have psoriasis before thearthritis shows up, interestingly up to30% will have the inflammatory jointdisease before any skin symptoms, halfof those not developing skin disease formore than a year after the arthritis find-ings. As you can imagine, this can makean accurate diagnosis a bit more diffi-cult. A few unique features of PsA thatcan help with making the diagnosis in-clude occasional findings of a diffusely

swollen digit, or ‘sausage-shaped digit,’called dactylitis (this is due to inflam-mation that runs along the length of atendon lining the finger or toe), or in-flammatory eye disease, especially an-terior uveitis, in which the patient mayexperience a red painful eye and anophthalmologist can actually identifyinflammatory cells within the eye itself.X-rays of the hands, feet, or sacroiliacjoints can also reveal some distinctbony features of PsA, unique from otherforms of arthritis. There is no singleblood test that can make the diagnosis,however.

Thankfully, we do have relativelygood medications to treat PsA. Theseinclude non-steroidal anti-inflammatorydrugs (NSAIDs), disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), or biologicmedications (anti-TNF drugs such asthe etanercept Phil Mikkelson tells ushelps his PsA...disclaimer: these med-ications won’t necessarily improve yourgolf game!).

If you or someone you know hasjoint pain, especially joint swelling com-bined with psoriatic skin disease, makean appointment with a Rheumatologist.An accurate diagnosis and appropriatetreatment may be closer than youthink.

———1. Firestein, GS. Et al. Kelley’s Text-

book of Rheumatology, 8th Ed. Saunders,2009.

2. Canti, F. et al. Psoriatic arthritis: asystematic review. International Journalof Rheumatic Disease (2010) 13: 300-317.

Next Year In Ag

Organ Concert Dec. 14Concert organist John

Friesen will present hisown arrangement ofTchaikovsky’s “NutcrackerSuite” at Trinity LutheranChurch at 7 p.m. Saturday,Dec. 14. The concert willbe in the former sanctuaryand is a friend andfundraising event for Trin-ity’s “pipe organ trans-plant” effort.

Even though the organ

console is presently inTrinity’s balcony in therear of the space, Mr.Friesen’s intricate footworkwill be projected onto ascreen in the front of theaudience.

In keeping with the ca-sual tone of the evening,hot cider and cookies willbe served during the per-formance. A free-will offer-ing will be taken.

MIL I TARY

SCHOLAST ICS

ADISA FORMOAdisa Formo, daughter of

Bob and Pat Formo of Yank-ton, graduated fromJoseph’s College of Cosme-tology & Barbering in Nor-folk, Neb., on Nov. 18, 2013.

Formo graduated from

Yankton High School in 2012and became Shellac certifiedfrom Joseph’s College. Heraccomplishments include sixmonths of perfect atten-dance and participating inTotal Look and Makeup &Updo competitions.

Thanksgiving Reading

SUBMITTED PHOTOOn November 18, Lincoln Elementary celebrated American Educa-tion week by holding a PTA-sponsored Read In. The Lincoln Stu-dent Council Members, along with advisors, Lesley Hale and SherylRehurek, and librarian, Kathleen Bergeson, presented a Reader'sTheatre on the book Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who SavedThanksgiving by Laurie Halse Anderson. Students in attendancecould select a new book for their personal libraries, as well as asnack. All were encouraged read with their families and completea Thanksgiving word find.