Sintering is a common technique for the production of ceramic, metallic and composite bodies and components. During this process, it is known that internal stresses can arise from external constraint or from differential densification. These stresses can give rise to significant strain rate changes, distortions and damage in the fired parts. For quality control of sintered bodies, it is necessary to measure or predict the changes in deformation behaviour that occurs as the porous starting bodies undergo densification. Contributions of the continuum mechanical approach to this problem of constrained sintering are reviewed. In particular, the methodology that considers a sintering body to be linearly viscous will be described and discussed. Theoretical predictions as well as experimental techniques and results will detailed.