FORUM HEALTH TRUMBULL Critical-care nurse wins $10,000 study grant

YOUNGSTOWN -- Kimberly Palazzo Howe has been awarded the 2002 critical care research grant from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses and Sigma Theta Tau International.
Howe, a critical-care clinical nurse specialist at Forum Health Northside Medical Center, is pursuing a doctorate in nursing at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
She will use the $10,000, two-year grant to fund her doctoral dissertation on a study she will conduct entitled "Mechanical Ventilation Antioxidant Trial" (MVAT).
Her study will attempt to determine whether the use of antioxidant supplements, such as vitamins A, C, E and N-acetylcysteine, on critically ill patients reduces the time they are on mechanical ventilation.
It will also measure if anti-oxidant use during a patient's hospital stay reduced complications and improved quality of life a year later, Lowe said.
When people become ill, the body releases oxygen-free radicals that destroy good tissue. Anti-oxidants combat the free radicals, Howe said.
Her training: A 1976 graduate of Ursuline High School in Youngstown, Howe received a bachelor of science in nursing from Youngstown State University in 1987 and a master of science degree in 1991 from CWRU.
At Forum Health, her job is to care for the most critically ill patients, teach other nurses and perform some administrative duties.
She and her husband, Jeffrey, live in Liberty. She is a daughter of Josephine Palazzo and the late Joseph A. Palazzo.