1.  What are creep and stress relaxation?  (PRS 1993; 92:248)

Answer:
Creep and stress relaxation refer to the viscoelastic properties of skin.  Creep occurs when skin is stretched in response to a constant force. Elastic recoil is the opposite of creep.  Stress relaxation refers to the gradually decreasing force required to stretch a piece of skin for a given constant distance.  Creep is the more clinically important of the two phenomena.
 

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