OMST: Rebuilding Your Sensory Foundation
When progress keeps stalling, the problem may go deeper than eyesight alone. Optometric Multi-Sensory Training (OMST) helps strengthen the brain’s sensory foundation so our integrated Neuro-Visual Performance Training can unlock elite performance that lasts a lifetime.
Experience
40+
Years
Neuro-Visual Performance Training
1 of only 24 practices worldwide
What Is Optometric Multi-Sensory Training?
Optometric Multi-Sensory Training, or OMST, is a non-invasive treatment designed to improve eye movement precision, including saccades, pursuits, and fixation stability.
Your eyes act like cameras, but seeing happens in the brain. When the brain struggles to sort visual, sound, motion, and touch input, daily life can feel busy, tiring, or overwhelming. OMST integrates auditory, vestibular, and proprioceptive inputs with vision to organize that sensory load.
At NVPI, OMST is one foundational component of our Neuro-Visual Performance Training program. It may be combined with vision therapy, perceptual training, syntonics, and other treatments based on each patient’s clinical evaluation.
Why the Sensory Foundation Matters
The brain relies on a stable sensory foundation. When visual noise cannot be efficiently filtered, the system becomes like an overwhelmed soldier—always on high alert and unable to separate threats from non-threats.
By addressing retained primitive reflexes and improving multisensory integration, OMST is designed to help rebuild that stable foundation so the nervous system can shift from fight-or-flight back to calm focus.
When Progress Gets Stuck
Many families come to NVPI after trying tutoring, occupational therapy, medications, or other care. Some things may help, but daily life still feels harder than it should.
In some cases, the missing piece is the brain’s ability to process and filter input from multiple senses at once. Until that foundation is stronger, other therapies may have a harder time creating lasting, structural changes.
Sensory Overwhelm
The brain is flooded with unprocessed visual noise, activating the stress response in normal environments.
Big Reactions
Because vision consumes so much brain energy, disruptions can cause outsized emotional or behavioral responses.
Slow Processing
Extra time is needed to identify, understand, and react to dynamic visual information.
Balance & Coordination
Poor visual-motor integration makes movement feel clumsy, off-balance, or more effortful than it should.
Reading & Learning
The transition to "reading to learn" creates visual demands that unmask underlying functional weaknesses.
Anxiety & Mental Fatigue
Constant scanning and compensating leave the nervous system on high alert and drained of energy.
Real Adult Patient Stories
DIZZINESS • CONFIDENCE • MOTION SICKNESS
Hear from adults who came to NVPI struggling with migraines, dizziness, motion sickness, anxiety, depth perception, and low confidence—and share how care helped them feel more steady, capable, and comfortable in daily life.
"I can do more, function multiple days in a row, and even drive again without losing the next day to dizziness."
A Story of Hope
Migraines, Dizziness & Balance Issues
"Driving feels normal again, my spatial awareness is back, and my confidence has skyrocketed."
Chase's Story
Confidence & Spatial Awareness
"What I thought was social anxiety was tied to how I processed visual information. Now I travel and walk into new places with ease."
Joe's Story
Motion Sickness, Anxiety & Depth Perception
"I can do more, function multiple days in a row, and even drive again without losing the next day to dizziness."
A Story of Hope
Migraines, Dizziness & Balance Issues
"Driving feels normal again, my spatial awareness is back, and my confidence has skyrocketed."
Chase's Story
Confidence & Spatial Awareness
"What I thought was social anxiety was tied to how I processed visual information. Now I travel and walk into new places with ease."
Joe's Story
Motion Sickness, Anxiety & Depth Perception
How OMST Works in Our Program
Step 1: We start with a comprehensive neuro-visual evaluation to understand how the brain processes complex visual and multisensory information, going far beyond 20/20 sight.
Step 2: If OMST is right for you, it becomes an integral piece of your personalized Neuro-Visual Performance Training program.
Step 3: During OMST sessions, the patient rests comfortably while the brain receives carefully timed combinations of light, motion, sound, rhythm, and touch-based input.
Step 4: Through neuroplasticity, the brain builds lasting neural pathways that endure long after treatment is completed.
Why OMST Feels Different
OMST is passive. There are no exercises to memorize during the session and no pressure to perform. The treatment is designed to work at a sensory level while the patient rests.
This makes it especially helpful for young children, patients with sensory overwhelm, non-verbal individuals, and people recovering from brain injuries like concussions, who may struggle with heavily active therapies.
At NVPI, we are proud to be one of only 24 practices worldwide offering OMST. We utilize it to help prepare the brain for the active vision therapy and perceptual training phases of our program.
Who Can OMST Help?
OMST supports both developmental and rehabilitative needs. It can assist children whose sensory foundation did not fully develop, as well as adults whose visual system was disrupted by concussions, neurological stress, or increased visual demands.
Because functional vision is central to navigating, learning, and performing, enhancing it changes outcomes across every area of life.
When the brain can organize sensory input more efficiently, daily life often feels calmer, steadier, and less effortful. is this better.
Frequently Asked Questions
Learn more about how OMST fits into your care at NVPI.
Take the First Step
If you or your child has worked hard in other therapies and still feels stuck, it may be time to look at the brain’s sensory foundation.
OMST is offered at both NVPI locations in Versailles and Somerset, Kentucky, as part of a personalized Neuro-Visual Performance Training program.
Why families choose NVPI
- Led by Dr. Rick Graebe, O.D., FOVDR, with 40+ years of private practice experience
- More than 9,000 patients served across ages and needs
- Integrated Neuro-Visual Performance Training encompassing vision therapy, perceptual training, OMST, and syntonics
- Patient-centered care creating lasting structural changes in the brain
- One of the only eye doctors in Kentucky with the elite OVDR international designation