Earlier this week, CBS Evening News featured the story of Mayo Clinic patient Dillon Papier and his family. Six-year-old Dillon has Niemann-Pick disease type C, a  rare inherited disease that affects approximately 1 in 150,000 people. Niemann-Pick disease type C has been called childhood Alzheimer's.

Click here or the graphic above to view the CBS story, which also includes an interview with Marc Patterson, M.D., a Mayo Clinic pediatric neurologist who is leading research into this disease. You also can see an extended interview with Dr. Patterson, in which he describes Niemann-Pick Type C in more detail, on the Mayo Clinic Podcast blog.

Tags: childhood alzheimer's, Dr. Mark Patterson, Mayo Clinic, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Neurology & Neurosurgery, niemann-pick, niemann-pick disease type c, pediatric neurology, Pediatrics