The 139th Executive Committee WHO was held in May 2016. The Russian delegation took part in its work. The main issue on the agenda was the report on “Dementia”. It was noted that each year dementia develops in 8 million people in the world. It is expected that this figure will increase to 145 million by 2050. In Russia the national plan to combat dementia is missing. In the resulting meeting, all the WHO country-members voted for immediate action on the adoption of the strategy for the fight against dementia by 2017. We developed a strategy for dementia, which includes the following tasks;

– The need of epidemiological research in the field of dementia;

– Research on etiology, prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of dementia;

– The expansion of the network of specialized stationary and nonstationarny facilities for patients with dementia;

– Development of programs of psychological care to patients with dementia and to caregivers;

– Development of palliative care for patients with dementia;

– Cross-sectoral cooperation and multidisciplinary approach in assistance to patients with dementia;

– Training in the field of geriatric psychiatry, denomination of the specialty of geriatric psychiatrist;

– Fighting stigma of patients with dementia, protection of their rights, including in psychiatry and forensic psychiatry.

The solution of these objectives requires foundation of the Russian observatory on dementia, the WHO cooperating center. The tasks of such an Observatory will be: centralization and coordination of actions concerning strategic planning, implementation of mechanisms of a multispectral cooperation, assessment of services, monitoring and providing reports on dementia issues in Russia.