( CNN ) -- The woman and children held captive in a cellar for years by their incestuous father will take years to recover from their disturbing ordeal , doctors warned Wednesday as the family at the center of the case remained in psychiatric care . The bathroom used by Elizabeth Fritzl , who was held captive for more than two decades , and her three children . Members of the Fritzl family will also be offered the chance to adopt new identities in an effort to help them lead normal lives , officials said . Hans-Heinz Lenze , the head of local social services said the family was `` doing as well as can be expected in the circumstances '' and said any change of identity would be the family 's decision . Elizabeth Fritzl -- now 42 -- spent more than two decades in the windowless basement after being drugged , handcuffed and locked up by her father , Josef Fritzl , as an 18-year-old . Repeatedly raped , she gave birth to seven children by Fritzl , one of whom died as an infant . Three of the children -- Kerstin , 19 ; Stefan , 18 ; and Felix , 5 -- remained imprisoned underground with their mother . The other three lived in an apartment upstairs with Fritzl and his wife who believed Elizabeth had abandoned them after running away from home . Elizabeth and five of the children were continuing to receive treatment at a local clinic near Amstetten after being reunited on Sunday . Kerstin , whose hospitalization at the weekend finally brought the family 's plight to the attention of authorities , remained in a coma at a nearby hospital . `` It is astonishing how easy it worked that the children came together , and also it was astonishing how easy it happened that the grandmother and the mother came together , '' clinic director Berthold Kepplinger said . But Kepplinger warned that the family would require extensive counseling . `` We 're talking of 20 years of darkness , incest and its effects and other illnesses they might have suffered from . '' Kepplinger said the two sets of children were tentatively getting to know one another , adding that the two boys who had lived underground had an unusual way of communicating with each other . A policeman who had accompanied the boys to hospital after their discovery on Sunday said the pair had `` screamed with excitement '' during the car journey as they experienced the outside world for the first time . `` The two boys appeared overawed by the daylight they had never experienced before , '' said Chief Inspector Leopold Etz . `` The real world was completely alien to them ... We had to drive very slowly with them because they cringed at every car light and every bump . It was as if we had just landed on the moon . '' In an interview with the Austrian newspaper , Oesterreich , psychiatrist Max Friedrich , who treated the abducted teenager Natascha Kampusch , estimated it would take `` between five and eight years '' for the children to recover from their experiences . Another psychologist , Bernd Prosser , told Austrian television that it would be impossible for the four held prisoner underground to lead normal lives . `` I am afraid it is too late for that . '' Kampusch , the Austrian girl abducted as a 10-year-old and held captive in a basement for more than eight years until she escaped in 2007 , also offered her help to the family on Tuesday , but questioned the decision to move them from the cellar into psychiatric care . `` Pulling them abruptly out of this situation , without transition , to hold them and isolating them to some extent , it ca n't be good for them , '' said Kampusch , now 20 , in an interview with Austrian TV station Puls 4 . `` I believe it might have been even better to leave them where they were , but that was probably impossible . This case is not like mine , where that was not my environment . They were born there and I can imagine that there is a strong attachment to that place . '' E-mail to a friend .
Austrian family held captive in a cellar will take years to recover , doctors say . Score: 6 Children kept underground may never lead normal lives , psychiatrist warns . Family have been offered opportunity to adopt new identities .