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Falls are a leading cause of disability in older people. Here we investigate if daily‐life gait assessments are better than clinical gait assessments at discriminating between older people with and without a history of falls.

A total of 96 independent‐living participants (age 75.5 ± 7.8) underwent sensorimotor, psychological and cognitive assessments, and the Timed Up and Go and 10‐m walk tests. Participants wore a small pendant sensor device for a week in their home environment, from which the new remote assessments of daily‐life gait were determined.

During daily‐life, fallers had significantly lower gait quality (lower gait endurance, higher within‐walk variability and lower between‐walk adaptability), but not reduced gait quantity (total steps) or gait intensity (mean cadence). In the clinic, fallers had slower Timed Up and Go, but not 10‐m walk test times. After adjusting for demographics …