Staring at her golf gear in her garage in Destrehan three years ago, Diane Roussel couldn’t understand why she couldn’t find a pair of gloves.

She rifled through her golf bag. There were no right-hand gloves. How could she have a dozen left-hand gloves and not a single pair? Her husband found her there, searching.

“You never had pairs,” he told her, gently. “Golfers wear one glove.”

Of course, Roussel knew that. She had been a golfer for decades.

Later that year, her whole extended family celebrated Christmas and her birthday. It was the biggest gathering they’d had as a family to celebrate, “just an amazing day,” Roussel said.

Three days later, a friend texted. “How was your Christmas?”

Roussel couldn’t remember. There “was just a hole” where the memory should have been. She sought out a doctor to understand what might be wrong. After cognitive testing and a spinal tap, Roussel, then 66, learned she had biological signs of early Alzheimer’s disease.

She pleaded with God for it to be something else. “I’d rather you give me every kind of cancer you have in the book than this,” Roussel said. “I don’t want to lose who I am.”

But there was a sliver of hope. She qualified for a newly approved drug, lecanemab, that was shown to slow down the progression of the disease.

Eighteen months later, Roussel had a follow-up brain scan. The biomarkers that typically indicate Alzheimer’s had normalized. She felt a brain fog lift and hasn’t had any more dramatic losses in memory. In a conversation with her doctor, Dr. James Rini at Ochsner Health, she heard a word rarely associated with the irreversible disease, which for decades has had no treatment shown to alter its course.

“Remission,” she said.

Remission and Alzheimer’s

Rini described Roussel as an uncommon but instructive case in the transforming fight against Alzheimer’s disease.

Since it was first identified more than a century ago, Alzheimer’s was viewed as a one-way decline, treated with medications that eased symptoms but did not change its course until the recent approval of anti-amyloid drugs in 2023 and 2024. 

Roussel is one of a small number of patients treated early enough that both imaging and biomarker evidence of Alzheimer’s pathology have receded to undetectable levels.

“From all objective ways that we have to measure this disease right now — our serum biomarkers or PET scans or MRIs or cognitive testing — there is no evidence that it’s there,” Rini said. “If she came to my clinic right now, I’d say, ‘You don’t have this.’”

At the same time, he knows that Roussel did have it. So he borrowed language from oncology, calling it a partial remission, like you might for stage 4 cancer.

Rini said this example is not a promise of what is typical for patients, but a glimpse of what may be possible when Alzheimer’s is caught and treated at exactly the right moment, in exactly the right patient.

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The promise and limits of Alzheimer’s drugs

Alzheimer’s is caused by a buildup of abnormal proteins, known as amyloid and tau, that slowly disrupt and kill brain cells, breaking the communication networks needed for memory, thinking and daily function.

Dr. Demetrius Maraganore, a neurologist at Tulane University and LCMC Health, explains it to patients by comparing it to the roots of oak trees and the cement used to patch New Orleans sidewalks.

Brain cells are shaped like trees, with branching extensions that allow them to communicate. In Alzheimer’s, amyloid accumulates between brain cells, as if cement was poured around the roots of trees to fix sidewalk cracks. If cement is poured at the base of the tree, it weakens the tree, interfering with its ability to receive nutrients.

As amyloid causes brain cells to weaken, another protein, tau, tangles inside the cells themselves, accelerating their decline. Once those brain cells die, they cannot be replaced.

Now, two new drugs, lecanemab, and donanemab, which were approved by the FDA in 2023 and 2024, can remove amyloid. They aim to interrupt the chain reaction that leads to cell injury and the spread of tau tangles, which are more closely tied to cognitive decline.

Lecanemab, sold as Leqembi, is made by Eisai and Biogen. Donanemab, sold as Kisunla, is made by Eli Lilly. The drugs alone cost about $26,000 to $32,000 a year. Medicare covers them for patients with early Alzheimer’s who meet strict criteria, though access can be limited by the need for frequent scans, infusions and specialist care.

In clinical trials, both drugs slowed cognitive and functional decline in people with very early Alzheimer’s disease. They do not cure Alzheimer’s, do not rebuild damaged brain cells and do not work for everyone.

There is an extensive screening process for who qualifies for the drug, so only about 5% of those who go through the screening process qualify, said Maraganore. Even in those people, sometimes the drugs simply don’t work. In others, they might barely slow the progression of symptoms.

Dr. Ronald Petersen, a Mayo Clinic neurologist who directs an Alzheimer’s disease treatment clinic, said it is important for patients to understand that the drugs typically do not end the memory and thinking problems that accompany Alzheimer’s. When they talk to patients about the drugs, they do so with caution. 

“One, these drugs don’t stop the disease,” Petersen said. Two, they don’t make you better, but we do think they slow down the rate of progression.”

But there could be exceptional cases. 

“If you get to somebody who has modest amount of amyloid and maybe just a nickel’s worth of tau, that might be the perfect sweet spot,” he said.

The drugs are the only ones proven to alter the underlying biology of the disease. For decades, Alzheimer’s drugs were targeted at symptoms. And despite debate in the field over the root cause of Alzheimer’s, “the data speak for themselves” for the modest effectiveness of these drugs, Maraganore said.

‘There’s hope’

Roussel describes a before-and-after when it comes to the drug treatment: mid-conversation blankness that used to startle her, and a lifting of brain fog. The potential side effects of the drugs — brain swelling and microbleeds — were worth it for her. 

“I live life big,” said the retired IT manager. She’s got holiday lunches with friends on her schedule, and she’s babysitting her “granddog” this week for her grandson while he’s out of town. She cares for her husband, who had a cascade of health issues around the time she was diagnosed.

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In addition to the drug, Roussel also changed her lifestyle. She went to a sleep clinic, changed sleep medications and got a CPAP machine, since sleep is shown to be when the brain repairs itself. She shifted her eating toward a Mediterranean-inspired MIND diet, which emphasizes vegetables, whole grains, fish and olive oil. She also changed her cholesterol medication to one less associated with cognitive side effects.

Under medical supervision, she began taking several supplements. She had always golfed, but added regular walking, aiming for at least 30 minutes of exercise five days a week.

She credits her faith with getting her through treatment and keeping her optimistic. Unlike decades of failed Alzheimer’s drugs, this one arrived at exactly the right moment, just as she received her diagnosis. It gave her hope.

“That was a little seed I had from the very beginning,” Roussel said. “And it just grew and grew.”

About 12% of Louisiana’s 65-plus population has Alzheimer’s disease, amounting to almost 100,000 people. A lot of them don’t talk about it because of the stigma of the disease. But Roussel sees her experience as carrying a purpose.

“I was meant to have Alzheimer’s so I could talk about it,” she said. “So I could tell people they need to get tested, and that real progress is being made.”

‘A matter of time’

Roussel, now 69, will transition to a lower-dose maintenance injection designed to prevent amyloid from reaccumulating.

Long-term answers remain limited.

“We don’t know if it’s going to come back,” Rini said. “We monitor closely, because this is essentially ongoing clinical research in real time.”

But the future is bright for a field that just a few years ago had almost nothing to offer patients. Lecanemab and donanemab have been shown to slow the progression of the disease 27% to 35%.

“There’s a place for these drugs,” Maraganore said. “But I also know that better things are going to come.”

Maraganore pointed to an oral drug in development, taken once daily, that he said has shown 50% to 75% slowing of disease progression at one year in clinical trials and is now being reviewed by regulators in Europe.

“Right now we’re peddling in Kitty Hawk trying to fly across the ocean, but soon we’re going to be sitting in first class in jumbo jets,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time.”

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) – Two Kinder men decided not to get a tree, but instead to build one of the largest Christmas trees the state of Louisiana has ever seen.

Kaleb Deaton and Donnie Domingue wanted a tree as big as they could imagine.

“Last year, we had a tree we built that was 20 feet, and this year we wanted to bring something special to the table. We came up with this 57-foot tree. We had all the supplies,” Deaton said.

The 57-foot-tall tree is lit up in their backyard, believed to be one of the largest man-made Christmas trees in Louisiana’s history

The tree is dressed with 20,000 bulbs connected to over a mile of wire and topped with an 8-foot star.

“I have some little girls, and I just love putting smiles on their faces,” Deaton said. “It’s just warming, and I wanted to do something special for them this year. Like I said, Donnie is a fabricator, and we put our heads together, and we just made it happen.”

They say they’ve been planning how big they were going to make the tree since last year.

“Our first plan was actually a 150-foot tree,” Domingue said.

It was a work in progress to be able to build the massive Christmas tree.

“It took an army to be able to put this thing up,” Deaton said. “I have a Treco in the back that has a lot of horsepower; it had to lift this baby up and Donnie’s welding machine.”

They say it looks like lots of welding, cutting, and grinding.

Since the Christmas tree has been up in Kinder, hundreds of people have come out to enjoy the holiday spectacle. They say being able to bring Christmas cheer to the area of Kinder is fulfilling.

“Oh, it’s great seeing people come line up down my driveway. I live on a dead-end road, and it’s awesome to come out and see everybody here with us. Having people talk on Facebook about what joy it’s brought to them, it’s been great,” Deaton said.

They’re already coming up with ideas on how to top next year’s tree

“We got something special, we are not going to let that out just yet, but we got something we talked about earlier. You’ll be here next year,” Deaton said.

The tree will be lit up and on display in Kinder until Jan. 6.

Copyright 2025 KPLC. All rights reserved.

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – For many Cuban families in Louisiana, Christmas means gathering for a traditional lechon, a pig roast that serves as the centerpiece of their holiday celebration.

Vivian Nieto, owner of Churro’s Cafe in Metairie, said the Cuban tradition parallels Louisiana’s French Acadian cochon de lait but uses distinct seasonings and preparation methods.

“The Cuban use, basically, is the garlic, the naranja agria, and salt,” Nieto said. “If you don’t add anything else, that would be perfect.”

Traditional mojo marinade starts with citrus and garlic

The marinade, called mojo, always starts with garlic and citrus, specifically bitter orange juice known in Spanish as naranja agria. Nieto adds cumin and oregano to the base mixture.

At her Cuban restaurant, Nieto uses a Boston butt instead of a whole pig and lets it marinate overnight.

“I remember when I was a kid, the night before, they cleaned, they marinated,” Nieto said. “In our family, we exposed our babies early to the big pig that gets seasoned and marinated the night before.”

Pig roasted all day on Christmas Eve

Like the Acadian cochon, the lechon is roasted all day on Christmas Eve. Nieto said the taste testing during preparation bonds families together.

“Not too many people realize how tight is Cuba with New Orleans,” Nieto said. “The food, you respond deeply.”

The pork is served with congri, black beans and rice with onions and garlic, and yuca.

Nieto said she finds deep joy in making food that connects Cuban culture across generations.

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