[1] Causes include spinal cord injury, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD).
The sign is named after Charles Edward Beevor, an English neurologist (1854–1908) who first described it.
When the patient is asked to raise his head as he lies supine on bed, the upper part of the muscle contracts disproportionately more than the lower portion, pulling the umbilicus toward the head.
[citation needed] Beevor’s sign is characteristic of spinal cord injury between T9 and T10 levels.
[3] The sign has also been observed in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease causing progressive weakening of the muscles of multiple areas of the body, and in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a disease named after areas of the body it preferentially weakens (face, shoulder, and upper arm).