Symptoms of KS can vary by person, and even by day. One challenge with identifying symptoms is that many of them are symptoms of other diagnoses, such as acute alcohol intoxication, alcohol withdrawal, dehydration, traumatic brain injury, dementia... the list goes on. Anything that can cause brain swelling or injury can also cause these symptoms. It is often the combination of the three cognitive symptoms listed below that are more indicative of KS than other diagnoses:

Anterograde Amnesia: Loss of memory in the time since onset of illness

Retrograde Amnesia: Loss of memory for a time before the onset of illness

I like to put these together and think of it as a fuzzy time period with the onset of KS happening somewhere in the middle. The person may have a loss of memory of things both before and after they got sick; however, as time passes, experiences may move into long-term storage and they may be able to remember things that you didn't expect them to.

Confabulation: A type of memory error when the brain fills in missing information with details that are logical, but not true. The person is not trying to lie, and is unaware that what they are saying is not true

Other physical symptoms of KS can include a shuffled gait, tremors, and jerky eye movements.